Tag: polygamy

52W Mark V – Week 20: William Burgess

William Burgess, Sr.
(1794-1880)

With William Burgess, Sr., we reach the last of my maternal Great x4 Grandparents. William was born in Putnam, Washington County, New York on May 20, 1794, the fourth of eight children born to Chris John Burgess and Hannah Newland.

Chris John was born Johann Christian Borges, who was born in Fischbach, Hesse Nassau. Johann was a Hessian mercenary who initially fought for the British in the American Revolution, but later switched sides.

Johann was a member of the Second Hessian Division, under the command of Lt. General von Knyphausen, which mustered near Bremen in June 1776. His regiment then sailed for England. In July they set sail for the colonies. In August 1778, he and two others deserted, with Johann ending up in Rhode Island. After doing so, Johann set himself up as a weaver, an occupation he may have had in Hesse. As well, the legend is that Johann changed his name during this time in order to fit in with the colonials.

On March 19, 1782, Johann enlisted with the Rhode Island Regiment and served for nine months. Johann served with a fellow named Jabez Newland, whose sister was Hannah Newland. Johann and Hannah married in Providence, Rhode Island in 1786.

Hannah had deep roots in colonial Massachusetts, with both sides of her family having arrived there in the early to mid 17th century. In fact, Hannah is most likely a direct descendant of Francis Eaton, one of the passengers on the Mayflower, although there is one link in her lineage that I haven’t quite confirmed.

Five years before marrying Johann, Hannah had been engaged to a man named John Watterman, who was also a Hessian mercenary who deserted to serve with the rebels. In February 1777, Hannah and John declared their intention to marry, but the Selectmen of Norton, Massachusetts denied them permission to do so. One account is that John had a “questionable” German background. That is somewhat ironic, given that Hannah ultimately ended up marrying another former Hessian mercenary.

The more likely reason is that Hannah and John had conceived a child out of wedlock. Hannah was fined five shillings for “fornication and having had a bastard child born of her body”, as well as paying the cost of the prosecution. John was in attendance at the court proceeding and acknowledged paternity. The court ordered John to pay for the maintenance of the child. It appears from the court record that the order was less for social welfare purposes and more to prevent the town from bearing the cost of supporting an unwed mother.

After Johann and Hannah married, they moved to New York and settled at Fort William on the shore of Lake George. From there the family moved to Putnam, where they had their first five children. The family moved to Bolton, New York sometime around 1797, where Hannah gave birth to three more children.

While the family had moved to Bolton, William appears to have ended up back in Putnam later in life, because that is where he married Violate Stockwell on May 1, 1813. Over the next ten years, William and Violate had six children, with five more after a move to adjacent Warren County.

Then William’s world changed.

Joseph Smith published the Book of Mormon in March 1830. Two years later, in July 1832, William’s eldest child, Harrison, heard a Mormon missionary by the name of Simeon Carter. Harrison joined the fledgling church and was baptised in October 1832. Harrison then convinced his parents and two of his siblings to join. William, Violate, and their children Horace and Rosina were all baptized into the new church, which at the time was called the “Church of Christ”. They were all baptized on December 2, 1832 by another recent convert, William Snow, who himself had only joined the Mormon church earlier in 1832.

This makes William a ground-floor member of the church. He became an active and prominent member. William was well-known to Joseph Smith. William testified on behalf of the defence at one of Joseph Smith’s trials. As well, William’s son William Jr. lived in Joseph Smith’s residence during the time the Latter Day Saints were in Kirtland, Ohio.

In fact, the Kirtland Elders’ Certificates from the Joseph Smith Papers purport that William was ordained a deacon on April 6 1830 – the date the church was formally established. Clearly there was some backdating of his membership.

“This certifies that William Burgess has been received into the church of the Latter-Day Saints, organized on the sixth of April, in the year of our Lord, one thousand, eight hundred hundred & thirty, & has been ordained a Deacon…

Joseph Smith Jr. Chairman.
F[rederick] G. Williams Clerk.
Kirtland, Ohio, April 2, 1836.”

Despite the official church record, created years after the event, William and Violate’s baptism is documented in William Snow’s journal, written at the time of the event. So I place no weight on the Kirtland certificate. A copy of the diary is reproduced in last week’s post about Violate.

William and family joined the Mormon migration and their search for Zion, a New Jerusalem and holy city in the Americas that the church desired to build its community of the righteous. This was originally Kirtland, Ohio, where William and Violate’s youngest child was born in 1837.

In Kirtland, William purchased a half acre tract of land in 1834 for $50 from a John Reed. The legal description of the property was Lot No. 44, Tract 1. William was one of the chief carpenters who helped construct the church’s temple at Kirtland. Among other things, William laid out the roofing timbers. When William left Kirtland, he sold his land for $180. Not a bad return for a few years’ investment.

In 1840, William and family moved with the Saints to Nauvoo, where William’s primary occupation was farming. William was also involved in the construction of the temple in Nauvoo. The family remained in Nauvoo until the Mormons were driven out in 1846. The Burgesses were amongst the first companies to leave Nauvoo, destined for what is now Utah, but which at the time was still part of Mexico.

“Camp of Israel” was a name used to describe Winter Quarters. These are entries from William’s time there, one from 1847 and the other from 1848, when William and family left for Utah.

Due to the late and rushed start of the migration, the Mormons were forced to set up camp in Nebraska at a site known as Winter Quarters, near where Omaha came to be. William and family were at Winter Quarters for most of its existence, from 1846 to 1848. When they departed, it was with a company of 662 and arrived in Salt Lake City in September 1848.

Location of William’s home in Salt Lake City. Today that is some prime real estate.

William lived in the 16th Ward of Salt Lake City for 12 years, where he was a farmer. He also raised cattle, and had a brand recorded on February 23, 1850. The mark was a stylized number “2” (having a curled flourish at the top) with an arch above, placed on the left hip.

On December 17, 1854, William entered into a polygamous marriage with Dorcas Keeling, who was 43 years old at the time. They married in the President’s Office in Salt Lake City. Dorcas was a recently divorced mother of three. She had been married to George Dykes, who left the church after serving a mission to Great Britain and Denmark in 1852. Dorcas and her children lived in William’s household until Dorcas’s children married and moved out. In fact, two of William’s grandsons, through his son Horace, married two of Dorcas’s daughters. So the sisters were also sisters-in-law, and the brothers were brothers-in-law.

In 1861, the church directed William to move to Pine Valley, which had been established two years earlier as a logging settlement. William was instructed to establish a saw mill there. Lumber produced at William’s mill was used throughout Utah, including the temple at Salt Lake as well as its pipe organ. Lumber from the mill was also used to build the Pine Valley Chapel, the oldest Mormon chapel in continuous use. As well, William built a separate home for Dorcas, a block from where he and Violate lived. By 1870, William had real property worth $500 and personal property worth $200.

William died on November 20, 1880 in Pine Valley, only four months after his wife Violate. Dorcas survived him by a year. William is buried at the Pine Valley Cemetery.

52W Mark IV – Week 39: Card B13 Maria Hadlond

Maria Hadlond (1838-1907)

We’ve reached the last card in the deck for my mother’s paternal line and the last of my Mormon ancestors who I’ll be looking at for this year’s 52 Ancestors Challenge.

Maria Hadlond, my Gx3 Grandmother, is my most recent ancestor from England. I have to go back another five generations on some of my other maternal lines before I can come upon anyone else from Old Blighty. Maria was born in Cheltenham, Gloucester, England on August 27, 1838, to Thomas Hadlond (1814-1892) and Rachel Franklin (1817-1879).

Thomas and Rachel were originally from West Oxfordshire, but were living in Cheltenham, on the edge of the Cotswolds, in the years before they emigrated. At the time, Thomas was working as a domestic servant.

Sometime in the late 1840s, the Hadlonds heard the preaching of some Mormon missionaries. On November 23, 1846, Rachel was baptized into the church. Several of their older children were baptized in the next two years, including Maria who was baptized on December 21, 1848, when she was 10 years old. I have the impression that while Rachel was a fervent convert, Thomas wasn’t too taken with the new religion and never actually joined it in his lifetime. He wasn’t baptized until 1893, a year after his death.

Whatever Thomas’s beliefs, the family left England for America to join the migration of Mormon converts who hoped to join the settlement in Utah. It is most likely the family left England sometime after September 1850, when their daughter Alice was born, and before June 1853, when their son Franklin was born. In fact, while their destination was ultimately the United States, it seems that the family entered North America through Canada, as Franklin was born in the Province of Canada (likely Canada West, which is modern-day Ontario).

By no later than 1856, the Hadlonds were in St. Louis, Missouri. It seems that the family’s circumstances were such that they did not plan to move to Utah anytime soon. However, I have not been able to determine whether this was because of finances (many Mormon migrants took years moving west while saving up for the trip) or because Thomas was not an adherent or all that serious about the church.

When Maria was 16, her mother met a Mormon missionary by the name of Preston Thomas who was passing through St. Louis on his way to Texas. When Rachel learned that Preston planned to arrange for a company of Texan converts to migrate to Utah, she “begged” him to take her three oldest children with him. This included Maria. Thomas did as requested and took the three Hadlond children to Utah. Ultimately, Maria’s two siblings returned to St. Louis and lived out the rest of their lives there. Maria remained in Utah.

Two years later, on October 8, 1856, Maria married Preston in Brigham Young’s office in Salt Lake City, with Young himself officiating. Preston was 42 years old at the time; Maria was 18. Moreover, this was a plural (polygamous) marriage, as Preston had two other wives. Preston’s first wife, Sarah Jane Morehead, was born the same year as Maria’s mother and they had a daughter only a few months younger than Maria. Preston’s second wife, Maria Foscue, was 16 years older than Maria. In order to avoid confusion between the two wives, Maria went by “Molly”. Molly and Preston had nine children together. This was in addition to the nine Preston fathered with Sarah Jane and four he fathered with Maria.

For the first four years after Molly married Preston, the entire family lived in Lehi, Utah, where Molly gave birth to her first two children. This included Ella Thomas, my Gx2 Grandmother.

Four generations: Maria with her granddaughter Maria (“Mimie”) Lamb (née Thomas) holding great granddaughter Rulon Lamb, and Ella Nelson (née Thomas), my Gx3 Grandmother.

In 1860, Brigham Young had Preston join a team exploring an area in northern Utah, where Young intended to form a new settlement that is now Franklin, Idaho. However, at the time, and for many years afterwards, the inhabitants thought they were in Utah. They only discovered later that the town was a mile north of the Utah-Idaho border.

Young directed Preston to return to Lehi to collect his family and join the first settlers. In addition, Young appointed Preston as the first Bishop of Franklin. Preston did as he was asked (today we might say “voluntold”), but it appears that Maria Foscue might have refused and remained in Lehi with her children.

In 1863, Brigham Young formed a team of 12 to 15 men to explore the Bear Lake Valley in Idaho, not far from Franklin. This group included Preston. By September 1863 a settlement had been erected in Bear Lake Valley where Paris, Idaho now stands. Preston moved the family there in the spring of 1864. A few years later, Preston moved the family to Fish Haven, about 20 kilometers south of Paris.

During the family’s time in Idaho, Preston carried out at least one more major mission to the South. This was in addition to Preston’s other endeavors, which included a term as a judge of the Utah Probate Court (when it was still believed that Franklin was in Utah) and a run for office for the Idaho territorial legislature (after the discovery Franklin was in Utah). This obviously left Sarah Jane and Molly without his support while they raised a significantly large household of children.

Preston’s absences from home were compounded when he left this world following an accident that occurred in 1877 while he was building a house on his property. Molly’s youngest child was seven months old at the time.

Maria with her three youngest children: Daniel, Letitia, and Rosabell (seated).

I have not yet tracked where Molly lived in the years immediately following Preston’s death, so I don’t know if she remained in Idaho or moved back to Utah. However, over the years several of her children joined the Mormons who were settling in Canada, in what is now the southern part of the province of Alberta. For example, her daughter Ella had moved there with her husband John Nelson. So in 1896, Molly and four of her children – all of whom were now adults – moved to Cardston, Alberta. Census records show that in 1901 Molly (who was going by Maria again) was a neighbour of one of her sons.

In 1902, Maria moved back to the United States and settled in the “Sugar House” neighbourhood of Salt Lake City, one of the oldest neighbourhoods in the city. Maria remained at the same house for the rest of her life. She passed away at home on May 29, 1907. She is interred in Franklin at the Franklin Cemetery.

Next week we start the last suit, covering my mother’s maternal line, who are Germans from Russia.

52W Mark IV – Week 38: Card B12 Thomas Preston

Preston Thomas (1814-1877)

TL;DR: My Gx3 Grandfather Preston Thomas was first a slave owner and later a polygamist. I don’t like him.

Of course, that comes with the bias of my point in time. The longer story is that in his time Preston was well-respected by his community, his church, and his family. He was acting on the norms of his time and his community. In addition to many different occupational pursuits during his life, Preston a leader, a teacher, a politician, and a judge.

Preston’s story begins in Rockingham, North Carolina, where he was born on February 15, 1814 to Daniel Thomas and Nancy Ann Morehead. Daniel was the son of a Baptist minister and was an affluent slaveowner with a 3000 acre plantation with a carpenter shop, blacksmith shop, a cotton gin, and a shad fishery. Daniel owned about 30 slaves, many of whom were passed onto his sons.

Needless to say, with the stature of his father, Preston was well-educated. Apparently he spent some time in New Jersey as part of his schooling, although I do not know what kind of school he attended or when. Preston was 16 when his father passed away on November 7, 1830. By the time he was 21, Preston’s endeavours included operating a sawmill he owned in Covington, North Carolina.

Sometime after Daniel died, Preston, his mother Nancy, and his older brother Joseph, and younger sister Elizabeth (“Betsy”) all relocated to Tipton, Tennessee. Joseph was married at the time; Preston and Betsy were not. Needless to say, the family brought their slaves with them. It seems Joseph bought some land that he farmed. Preston’s pursuits included the study of law, but I don’t know if he actually practiced. By 1838, Preston also owned a mill in Tipton.

In Tipton, Preston married Sarah Ann Jane Morehead on May 10, 1838. Sarah – who went by Jane – was a cousin of Preston’s to some degree, but I haven’t researched their exact relationship. From 1839 to 1860, over four states, Preston and Jane had nine children.

Sarah Ann Jane Morehead and Preston Thomas

Sometime in mid-1835, Preston’s brother Joseph had relocated to Somerville, Mississippi. Years later, Joseph returned to Tennessee and persuaded his mother and siblings Betsy and Daniel to join him in Mississippi. Preston remained in Tipton. However, after Preston’s mother died on November 7, 1843, he moved to Somerville. Part of the move was to help settle his mother’s estate. Preston build a mill upon moving to Somerville; presumably a sawmill as he had done in North Carolina.

It was in Mississippi that Preston and his family first encountered some Mormon missionaries. Eventually, Preston and all his siblings joined the church; in fact, years later on a mission to Texas, Preston converted his brother Daniel. Preston was baptised into the church January 13, 1844 and became one of its most ardent evangelists. He served on six major missions, primarily to Texas. Preston travelled the Mississippi river nearly thirty times as part of his missionary work. Thomas sold his slaves to his uncle, Benjamin Thomas, and moved his family to Nauvoo, Illinois, settling there by 1845.

When the Mormons were driven out of Nauvoo in 1846, Preston initially moved his family to Memphis, Tennessee. In part, it was because they still had family in Tennessee; as well, Preston was serving another mission. They remained there for at least a year. By 1848, Preston and family had joined the Mormon migration in Winter Quarters in Nebraska, which the Saints had set up as a temporary community on their way to Utah.

However, before proceeding to Utah, Preston was called to another mission to Texas. As well, in 1850, the family briefly lived in Freemont, Iowa, where Preston carried out farming. While residing there, Preston and Sarah Jane took in two of Preston’s nephews, whose parents had passed away. By 1851, Preston and his family had settled in Lehi, Utah, where they remained for the next nine years.

Sometime in 1949, during one of his missions to Texas, Preston met John Smith and Maria Amanda Foscue (1822-1885), a couple with seven children. John was originally from Alabama, Maria was from Florida. During this mission, Preston converted the couple, who undertook the trek to Utah. John did not survive. Maria ultimately ended up in Salt Lake City and came back into contact with Preston, who she married on November 17, 1851. Bear in mind that Preston was still married to Sarah Jane at the time, and he remained so until he died. With Maria, Preston had four children, all of whom were born in Lehi.

Besides providing for his large and growing family, Preston was a busy man in Lehi. The town established a school in 1851. Preston and his sister Betsy were its first teachers. Preston taught the boys on one side of the school room; Betsy taught the girls on the other side. A school board was established on February 20, 1854. Preston was one of three men elected as the first trustees. Another was William Burgess. My grandfather, Leo Burgess, is a direct descendant of William and Preston – William on his father’s side and Preston on his mother’s. A month after becoming a member of the school board, Preston was elected as an alderman of Lehi.

Two of Lehi’s first school board trustees, and great grandfathers of Leo Burgess, my maternal grandfather

On top of all that, Preston was one of the first Probate Judges in Utah. He was appointed when the court was created and was the first judge for Utah County (Salt Lake City). Preston’s appointment was approved by an Act of the territorial legislature on February 7, 1852 (Laws of the Territory of Utah, Chapter XLV).

At the time of its creation, the Probate Court in Utah had a much broader jurisdiction than simply the estates of the deceased and those under guardianship. In addition, the territorial legislature granted the court jurisdiction over civil, criminal, chancery, and divorce matters. As well, the Probate Court heard appeals from the county Justice of the Peace courts. In 1874, the federal government revoked the Probate Court’s jurisdiction over all matters except for divorce and probate matters and in 1877, it revoked the court’s authority in divorce matters. When Utah became a state in 1896, the Probate Court was abolished.

Docket and Journal of the Probate Court, 1852, showing Judge Preston Thomas swearing in the Clerk of the Court.

It appears that Preston’s tenure was a short one, as he was succeeded by Isaac Higbee on December 27, 1852. Not surprising, since Preston was called to serve yet another mission in Texas, from August 1852 to November 1853. Preston served yet another mission in Texas from September 1854 to September 1856.

During that latter mission, Preston made his way to Texas through St. Louis, Missouri. There he met Rachel Hadlond (née Franklin), an English immigrant who had joined the Mormon church. When Rachel learned Preston was arranging for a company of Texan converts to migrate to Utah, Rachel “begged” him to take her three oldest children, Charlotte, Maria (“Molly”), and Edward with him. The children were ages 18, 16, and 14 at the time. While Molly remained in Utah, Charlotte and Edward ultimately returned to St. Louis.

Two years later, on October 8, 1856, Preston married Molly. Apparently Brigham Young himself was the officiant, and conducted the ceremony in his office in Salt Lake City. Preston was 42, Molly was 18. Preston fathered 9 children with Molly. All together, Preston fathered 22 children with his three wives. Preston and Molly’s first child was a daughter, who they named Sarah Ann Jane, after Preston’s first – and still – wife.

During his final years in Lehi, Preston was elected to the Utah Territorial House of Representatives, serving for three sessions from 1857 to 1859. Preston was first elected as one of three representatives of Utah and Cedar Counties, along with Aaron Johnson and James C. Snow. During his first term, he served on two Select Standing Committees: Elections, as well as Agriculture, Trade, and Manufacture. The first session took place in Fillmore, which was originally the territorial capital. The next two took place in Salt Lake City.

Some of Preston’s legislative and judicial positions

In June 1860, Preston accompanied Brigham Young as part of a team exploring a site in northern Utah. Young planned for a settlement at the site. During the trip, Young told Preston that he wanted him to be the Bishop of the new settlement and directed Preston to go home and get his family. It was a two-week trip to make the move. Maria and her children remained behind in Lehi, as she was about to give birth to her youngest child.

By September, a settlement was established at the location, which became Franklin, Idaho. When it was established, the founders believed the site was in Utah. Long afterwards they discovered that it was inside Idaho, about a mile north of the border. In the meantime, Franklin was administered as if it was in Utah. Preston served as bishop in Franklin for three years. In 1863, Preston was reappointed to the Probate Court of Utah, where he served until 1865.

In 1863, Brigham Young directed a team of 12 to 15 men to explore the Bear Lake Valley in Idaho, not too far from Franklin. This group included Preston. The team completed its survey and by September 1863 a settlement had been erected where Paris, Idaho now stands. Preston built a log cabin at the time and then returned to Franklin for the winter. He then moved to Bear Valley with his family the following spring.

After living in Paris for a while, Preston moved the family about 20 kilometers south, to Fish Haven. During the time he lived in Bear Valley, Preston was called to serve another mission in 1869 and 1870, which included Alabama and Tennessee.

In 1873, Preston moved his family back to Franklin. Upon his return, Preston oversaw the construction of a canal, which was nicknamed Thomas Ditch. The name was probably an apt one as it seems calling it a canal might have overstated its stature. Regardless, it remained in use for 60 years and was subsequently expanded. Preston settled on a homestead of 160 acres, alongside the canal.

In 1876, Preston once again stood for election to a territorial legislature. However, by that time, it had been discovered that Franklin was inside Idaho, so Preston was nominated to run for the Territorial Council of Idaho for Franklin County. It does not appear that he was successful.

A year later, on July 10, 1877 Preston was killed as a result of an accident while working with his son Preston Pinkney, who was 16 at the time. Preston had felled a pine tree that he intended to mill into lumber for a house he was building on his property. Preston was cutting the tree into lengths when it began to roll downhill. While trying to move out of the way, Preston’s feet became entangled in the brush, and he fell. While he was rolling down the hill, the tree rolled over him and killed him instantly. Preston was interred at the Franklin Cemetery.

I acknowledge that my dislike for Preston might smack of presentism, which involves applying modern values and perspectives to historical analysis. As someone who majored in history, I am well-aware of the viewpoints for and against presentism. It is also a question debated by genealogists in writing about our ancestors.

However, we are also allowed our feelings about past norms that are now seen as historic wrongs. Moreover, while it is important remember our ancestors in the context of their time and what might have been considered right or wrong, I am not convinced that absolves the slaveholders and bigamists of my past. Avoiding presentism does not mean avoiding the application of a critical mind.

While it might not be appropriate to judge Preston, especially by modern standards, it does not mean I have to like him.

One thing that researching Preston has instilled in me is understanding the responsibility I have in doing something positive with the knowledge that Preston was a slaveowner. For example, researching slaveowners can help the descendants of the enslaved learn more about their ancestors. That’s an area of genealogical research I haven’t done much of and involves a steep learning curve. Time, distance, access to records, and resources are also hurdles. Nevertheless, I have started investigating what tools and techniques I can employ in that research.

52W Mark IV – Week 36: Card B10 Robert Nelson

Robert Nelson (1818-1902)

Anyone who has done genealogy long enough knows all about the family trees you can find online that are wildly incorrect, have blatant errors, or don’t have a scintilla of evidence to back them up, which are then replicated and used by others, perpetuating and spreading the error. Nowhere in my tree is there a better example of this than my Gx3 Grandparents, Robert Nelson and Elizabeth Joseph. There are a lot of myths, legends, and erroneous information posted about them online that simply are not true.

This sort of thing pre-dates the rise of genealogy on the internet, usually in the form of family lore that was (and still is) passed around. One such story I heard from a relative was that Robert Nelson was a descendant of famed Scottish poet Robbie Burns. While I knew enough not to accept the suggestion as truth, I was thrilled by the possibility because he is one of my favourites. In the meantime, I was excited by the idea that I might have Scottish roots.

It did not take long to dispel the myth that Robert was a descendant of Scotland’s bard. Robert Nelson’s mother was a woman named Martha Burns. Martha was born in 1787. So while her surname was Burns and she was born at a time Robbie Burns was busy fathering numerous children, that is where the correlation ends. None of Burns’ children – legitimate and illegitimate – were named Martha. Besides, Robert Nelson and his mother weren’t even Scottish, they were Irish, although Robert spent about eight years living in Scotland before emigrating for the United States.

Robert was born on September 4, 1818 in Muff, Donegal, to Samuel Nelson and Martha Burns, both of whom were also born in Donegal. I know very little about Robert’s life in Ireland. Beyond his birth, the earliest thing I know is that he married Elizabeth Joseph in Muff on December 12, 1842.

There are many unsubstantiated legends around their marriage. One story, with many iterations, is that Joseph and Elizabeth became stranded overnight by a storm during a picnic. To ameliorate the disgrace of spending the night together, Joseph did the honourable thing and married Elizabeth. Another myth, without a shred of evidence, is that Elizabeth was Jewish and was disowned by her parents when she married a Christian. Rubbish.

Within two years of marrying, Robert and Elizabeth were living in Linwood, Scotland, about 15 kilometers west of Glasgow. Robert was a labourer there. While in Linwood, the couple had their first child, a son named Samuel, born in 1844.

By 1847, the family was living in Greenock, Scotland, a port town west of Glasgow. There Robert worked for Brown’s Sugar House on Roxburgh Street as a sugar baker. Sugar bakers refined muscovado sugar, an unrefined brown sugar imported from Barbados. While in Greenock, Robert and Elizabeth had two more children.

Meanwhile, the first Mormon missionaries arrived in Scotland in the early 1840s. Within ten years, there were two to three thousand adherents to the new religion, with about 70 branches. Many of these people began to emigrate to the United States to join the Mormons who had settled in Utah which, perhaps ironically, resulted in a decline in the church in Scotland.

Robert and Elizabeth joined the Mormon church and were baptized in December 1848. They joined the exodus of people from Scotland who were heading to the New World.

Robert and his family departed Liverpool on September 3, 1850 aboard the ship North Atlantic. All they brought with them was two boxes of clothing. For years I thought “north Atlantic” was a description of their route, until seeing the ship’s manifest. Robert and Elizabeth were part of a group of Mormon converts travelling aboard this ship, which showed at least one other passenger who had been a sugar baker at Brown’s.

Passenger list for the ship “North Atlantic”, which left Liverpool on September 3, 1850, showing the Nelson family travelling from Liverpool to New Orleans.

The North Atlantic landed at New Orleans. Robert and family spent about the next two years in Missouri, where they had a daughter, Mary, in 1852. Within months of Mary’s birth, the family arrived in Utah. They settled in Farmington, just north of Salt Lake City. In 1858, while still living in Farmington, Robert became an American citizen. Robert and Elizabeth had another four children while living in Farmington, including my Gx2 Grandfather, John Alexander Nelson.

Excerpt of the Invoice of Passengers for the ship “North Atlantic“

Sometime around late 1859, Robert and family moved to Smithfield, Utah, not far from the Idaho border. Robert and Elizabeth’s youngest child, a daughter named Jane Margaret, was born there in 1862. There Robert was a farmer in Smithfield. According to the 1870 census, Robert owned $400 in real property and $300 in personal property. In 1880, Robert was elected to at least one term as a school trustee in Smithfield.

It seems that typical of all my Mormon Gx3 Grandfathers, Robert may have also been a practitioner of polygamy. According to my Aunt Fon, who was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints, Robert was “sealed” to two women on the same day, November 15, 1855. This is an ordinance (rite) in the Mormon church by which individuals are sealed together for eternity. Robert was 66 at the time. Beyond the fact the rite occurred, I know nothing about either woman beyond their names, Mary Ann Burns and Elizabeth Dixon.

Robert, who was only two weeks older than Elizabeth Joseph, died in Smithfield on February 10, 1902, three months before Elizabeth died. Robert is buried at the Smithfield City Cemetery.