John Etherington & family in Utah

After 1855 John Pugh and his baby daughter disappear from sight – John and Elizabeth Etherington brought up their motherless granddaughter Ann.  They lived at Slaterville in Weber County, a tiny settlement which on their arrival had just been reoccupied, having been abandoned for a short while because of a small war with the Indians.  John became a Ward teacher and high priest; he and Elizabeth died in the late 1860s.

In 1867 Thomas took a second wife, Margaret Newby from Houghton le Spring.  The two families, as was usual, lived separately. 

Sarah Wheeler Etherington had a large household, a large number of children and several hired men to feed, and was remembered as an unusually fine cook.  She served for 28 years in the presidency of the West Weber Ward Relief Society from 1871 to her death in 1899.  The Relief Society had originally been established by Joseph Smith's first wife Emma Hale and was formally reinstated in December 1866 under Eliza Snow, one of Brigham Young's wives.  Snow led the society's expansion into purchasing properties and building halls, establishing co-operative and commission stores, setting up a grain-storage programme, building granaries, providing scholarships for women to attend medical schools, operating schools for nurses and midwives in the Intermountain area, operating a hospital, founding a newspaper, staging mass meetings to express their views on political issues, and promoting women's suffrage.  It was of enormous importance in the lives of Faceby women, and gave them opportunities and status which they would never have experienced in Yorkshire.  On Sarah's death at the age of 59, her obituary recorded that  "a more even-tempered, kind-hearted woman would be hard to find".  Margaret Newby Etherington had three children.  

Thomas rose in the hierarchy and was sent back to England as a missionary between 1886 and 1888, working for the first year in Sunderland.  He became President of Slaterville Consolidated Creameries and was a trustee of West Weber public schools.  He died in 1907.

Ann Etherington arrived in Utah with a little boy, a baby and no husband in 1855.  The following year she married John Newey, a fifty year old man with two grown daughters, who had also travelled over on the Siddons.  Ann had eight children and died in 1922.  At the sesquicentennial celebrations in Ogden she was played by one of her descendants in a Living History Cemetery Tour as "a young mother cared for by the Church of the Latter-day Saints."

Frances Etherington Bulmer joins her family 1884

The Etherington emigration was not complete in 1855.  Frances Etherington Bulmer and her husband James had remained behind in County Durham, where he seems to have worked as a blacksmith in the coal fields.  In 1884 the Bulmers were at last able to emigrate.  Their journey was much easier, crossing by steamship to New York and then travelling by transcontinental railway to Ogden.  A journey which had taken the rest of the family seven months and cost Frances' sister Elizabeth her life now took 18 days.

George & Thomas Stanger in Utah

George and Mary Stanger settled in Slaterville, and there they raised their twelve children. 

George worked as an apprentice at 'Merrygold Farms', and he in turn taught his children to make their land beautiful with vegetable gardens, lawns, flowers, trees and shrubs – they always had an orchard with fruit trees and a spot for raspberry, gooseberry and red- and black-currant bushes. 

Mary was a midwife who delivered hundreds of babies, including most of her own grandchildren.  Both boys and girls were taught to knit their own black stockings – as soon as a child could handle four small knitting needles, he or she would knit the stocking legs and their grandmother or one of the older children would do the heels and toes.  Whenever anyone sat down in a chair in their front room they would find a half-knitted black stocking and they would pick it up and start where the last person left off. 

Mary was famous for her baking, her home-made butter and her Yorkshire puddings.  She dried many fruits and corn, and the live yeast starter which she brought to Utah was still sweet and good when she died.  She was a member of the Relief Society, which she felt was a divinely inspired organisation.  George rose in the hierarchy and became a bishop’s counsellor. 

In the 1880s the family moved to Idaho, probably following a call to colonise – it had the biggest Mormon population outside Utah – as did their eldest son George with his two wives and numerous children. 

Thomas and Jane Stanger had eleven children.  After many moves, they eventually set up home in Marriott's Settlement, near Ogden.  They had many hardships in the early years, but they built up a good farm and fruit orchard.  Jane was a hardworking wife and mother, who helped the sick, made burial clothes and laid out the dead.  She was active in the Relief Society and was a visiting teacher.  She worked in the family orchard and was particularly remembered as going out gleaning after harvest, putting the grain in the church granaries for the needy.  When she died she left 10 living children, 63 grandchildren, 101 great grandchildren, and 2 great great grandchildren.

James & Isabella Stanger rejoin their children 1869

Like the Etherington family, the Stanger emigration was not complete in 1855. 

While the pioneers were at sea, back in Yorkshire John Stanger's one year old daughter had died.  He was left with only little Isabella, and they lived with his parents at Marigold Hill, a hundred acre farm between Landmoth Wood and the A19.   Isabella, an only child in a household of Mormon adults, fell pregnant at the age of 16, the father's name being recorded in the family records as John Pickersgill. 

In 1869, soon after Isabella's little boy was born, her uncle George Stanger came over from Utah on a visit – he was obviously now sufficiently prosperous to make the trip to see his family.  On his return on the steamship Colorado he took four of them with him – James and Isabella (both aged nearly 80) and young Isabella and her baby. 

They travelled by steamship and railroad all the way to Ogden, where the old people seem to have lived with their sons for their remaining years.  Isabella died in 1874 and James at the age of nearly 90 in 1880.  Young Isabella married, and her son was brought up in her new family.

John Stanger joins his family 1875

John Stanger stayed behind in Landmoth for a little while longer, before moving to a farm at Kirby Sigston where he was near his remaining brother James. 

He did not settle there long, and in 1875 at the age of 59 he sailed on the steamship Wyoming.  He was able to afford the extra fare to travel in the comparative comfort of the Intermediate class.  There he seems to have met a lady of his own age, named Susan Atkinson.  Perhaps he was able to help her when her satchel – which held £14, a gold watch and a ring – was stolen on the train while travelling through Ohio.  John married in Salt Lake City and it seems highly probable that Susan Atkinson was his new wife.  John and Susan can be found in the 1880 census living at Hooper, Weber County, with his nephew young John Stanger and his family living next door.

Only James Stanger junior remained in Yorkshire.

William Wilson joins his brother 1888

Jane Stanger's brother Thomas Wilson went to live in Payson, about 100 miles away from his sister – but at some point in their lives George, Thomas and Ann Stanger all lived in Payson, so contact cannot have been lost. 

Thomas Wilson was married in Payson to a girl from Australia, and they had nine children.  The early years were very hard, but they persevered and prospered. 

When they were joined more than thirty years later by Thomas's brother William and his family, the contrast between their fortunes was marked – one brother was rich, the other poor. 

William had worked as a farm labourer through the worsening agricultural depression in England, and it must have been very hard to raise the money needed to emigrate.  He and his wife Mary Ann Foster had nine children, six of whom had survived infancy, and he arrived in Payson in 1888 with the three youngest – within months, his wife and daughter had died. 

The Simpson and Wake families

George Simpson's widow and daughter seem to have left Mormon Grove for St Louis after his death, and there the 1880 census finds his daughter Selina married to a printer called Harry Krueger, a Mormon born in Germany.  They had seven children, and Selina's mother formed part of the household.

According to information on the IGI, the Wake family had travelled as far as Illinois when Elizabeth Thompson Wake died, leaving three children under the age of 9.  Charles remarried and completed the journey to Utah, where he is said to have married his second wife's younger sister.  They then seem to have moved back to Nebraska.  His two Faceby-born sons, however, settled in Utah and the 1880 census finds them living with their families next door to each other in Box Elder County.

Charles and Ann Hogg

Charles and Ann Hogg had a hard and eventful life. 

In common with the others, they suffered hardships in the early years.  Food was scarce and Charles was called away on militia duties because of the Mormon war, while Ann had to manage alone in a log house with a dirt floor and dirt roof. 

They moved several times before settling in Centerville, Davis County and were preparing to buy a farm when they were called as a family to go south to settle the Muddy Mission.  This was part of Brigham Young's drive to make the Mormons self-sufficient in cotton, by developing an area 300 miles south of Salt Lake City.  They had six sons and three daughters, but they sold up what they could not carry and willingly set off on 30 November 1868. 

The journey was difficult.   Their baby daughter fell terribly ill on the way south, and Navahos from over the Colorado stole all their teams when they camped on the Virgin River – they recovered all but two horses. 

On arriving at the Muddy Mission they were advised to settle at St Joseph, known as Sandtown.  There was nothing there but mounds of drift sand which choked up the water ditches, and the heat was terrible.  After a year they were moved on to old St Joseph, where the settlers built houses, and planted crops.  They shared what little food they had with the local Indians.  Ann did her washing on rocks in the river using white sand for soap and gathered wild sego bulbs from the mountains for vegetables. 

Charles was sure the settlement would be a success, but Brigham Young thought otherwise – especially as it turned out that many of the farms were in Nevada, and Nevada wanted back taxes on the produce.  The taxes, the malaria and the poverty decided Brigham Young to call them home. 

"In Feb 1871 we left our home again; our farm and crops of fine looking grain, houses, furniture, in fact all that we could not haul with our poor teams, we had left."

They were caught in a snow storm in the mountains in thin clothing  – two feet of snow fell in one night, causing great suffering.  It took them 14 weeks to reach West Weber, where their old neighbour Thomas Etherington lived.  They now had no clothing, food or tools, and were so poor that Ann had to make clothes for the boys from the waggon cover.  They stayed in the area, so presumably Ann would have been within reach of her parents in their last years. 

Charles built a comfortable read-brick house and planted an orchard.  Ann learned to dry the fruit on rocks and sold it to Ogden merchants.  Charles was made one of the Trustees of West Weber Irrigation Co, and in Jubilee Year 1880 he was able to pay for one person's emigration from England to Utah. 

In the same year, Charles "went into the celestial order of marriage by taking Miss Annie Todd, late from Durham County, England, to be our second wife".  She was 19 years old, much of an age with his children who ranged from 10 and 27 years of age.  Ann Stanger Hogg, in her descendants' words, "accepted this second marriage dutifully and in good faith, and accompanied them to Endowment House for their marriage." 

For ten years he supported both of his families, having at least one child with his second Ann.  Eventually however, the federal government insisted on suppressing polygamy, and he was forced to give up one of his families.  He chose to remain with his second wife and her young family, a decision which Ann accepted “with dignity and courage". 

Charles' autobiographical sketch shows that had worked enormously hard all his life and he was proud of what he had achieved, the status he had gained, the labour, money and time he had devoted to the church, and his work to maintain his two families.  He may have been convicted of polygamy, possibly paying a fine or serving a term in gaol, and consequently been disenfranchised – he ends his account with the words, written ten years before his death,

"Dec 1891 I am still a disenfranchised citizen of the United States but still trying hard to be a Latter Day Saint."

Ann Stanger Hogg worked as a counsellor in the Relief Society and as a Visiting Teacher for 18 years.  For the last years of her life – she died in West Weber in 1899 – she had "a cancer on her head".  During this time she frequently stayed with her daughters in Idaho and her children gave her "a comfortable swing rocker for her birthday". 

One of her granddaughters recalled that,

"It was a real treat to go visit Grandma Hogg.  I slept in her high bed on a straw 'tick'.  She would sing to me and tell me stories.  Once when I had typhoid fever she took charge of the treatment, wrapped me in sheets, placed hot cobs of corn around my feverish body to 'break the fever'.  When I was well enough to sit up, Grandma took me to her home to give Mother a rest.  I nestled on her lap in shawls and blankets as she tenderly cared for me.  Always I looked forward to a big slice of bread and butter which she covered with her choice black raspberry jam. 

In later years she took turns staying with her married children, and we were always delighted when it was our turn to have Grandma.  She always sat in a big rocking-chair, would mend and help Mother sew, and rock the babies to sleep.  She made such good pies, doughnuts, and bread, and took pride in making them look attractive.  When our baby sister, Martha, was only six weeks old she became ill with pneumonia, and Grandma held her all the time to keep her warm.  Soon the precious baby died, but Grandma held her to the last.  We all wept our hearts out when our pretty little sister was taken from us, but Grandma stood by to give us comfort and strength.  She stood for all that was good and spiritual and clean.  How I loved her."

 Another Cleveland Family

The Wilsons, Stangers and Hoggs all lived, at least for a time, in Payson, Utah.  There they must have encountered the family of the late Charles Dixon (1766-1854), who had died on his way to Utah.  He had lived in Hutton Rudby as a boy, leaving at the age of six with his family to settle in Nova Scotia.  His father Charles Dixon (1730-1817) was a Wesleyan Methodist and had owned the Hutton Rudby paper mill.  Charles Dixon junior became a Mormon in 1836 and left Nova Scotia for Kirtland, Ohio.  In 1854, although aged eighty-eight and nearly blind, he set off with his wife and family for Utah.  While halting at Rock Island for a few days to prepare for the journey across the plains, he fell on the hotel steps and later died of his injuries. 

His family arrived safely in Utah and settled in Payson.  His widow Elizabeth Humphrey Dixon was born in Canada in 1778 but her parents, William Humphrey and Jane Flintoff, were married in 1776 in Deighton – the village where Charles Hogg had been born and brought up.  She died in Payson in 1864, aged eighty-six.

Sources

Many thanks to Carole Burdon of the Billingham Family History Centre for her kind assistance, to Mrs Janet Linfoot who supplied extracts from the Faceby Church Book 1805-57 and to Mrs Dorothy Jewitt who supplied information on the Wilson family

Information provided by the LDS Historical Department, Utah:

"Pioneer Women of Faith and Fortitude" by the International Society Daughters of Utah Pioneers c1998.  This includes entries on Elizabeth Hemsley Etherington, Mary Etherington Stanger and Jane Wilson Stanger , together with photographs.  [It carries the caveat from the LDS Historical Department that readers must "be aware that these biographical sketches come from family members and may not be totally accurate"]

"Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah" by Frank Eshom.  Pub Salt Lake City, Utah Pioneers Book Publishing Co, 1913.  Where there is disagreement between PWFF and PPM, I have preferred the latter.  It was published within the lifetime of some of the original pioneers of the family.

"Truth will Prevail: the rise of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the British Isles 1837-1987":  editors:  Ben V Bloxham, James R Moss, Larry C Porter.  Solihull (England):  The Church, c1987.

"Half Yearly Report of the Newcastle upon Tyne Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of LDS, held at Sunderland on Sat and Sun May 14 and 15, 1853".  London:  printed by W Bowden 1853.

The standard reference for Mormon emigration from Britain:  "Expectations Westward" by P A M Taylor 1965 pub Oliver & Boyd Ltd

I had the great good fortune to find on the internet:

"Biographical Sketch of Ann Stanger Hogge" by Katheryn Hart Conger, 1955, at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~schick/hart/AnnStanger.htm

Mormon Immigration Index – Personal Accounts CD [available from LDS Family History Centre]

Parish Registers, 1851 Census in the North Yorkshire County Record Office

Censuses at Northallerton County Library

I am indebted to the following websites:

Utah State Historical Society “Utah History To Go” at http://historytogo.utah.gov

Utah History Encyclopedia at www.media.utah.edu/UHE

The names of missionaries in the Sunderland Ward may be found at www.sunderlandward.co.uk/ex-miss.htm

A brief history of the Sunderland Ward may be found at www.sunderlandward.co.uk/brief.htm

Details of emigration and extracts from Charles Dickens may be found in an article adapted from “The Pick and Flower of England, the Illustrated Story of the Mormons in Victorian England and the Story of the Preston Temple” by David M W Pickup, reproduced with permission of the author on  www.lds.org.uk/history/emigration.htm

Details of the Mormon Pioneer Trail, which may be followed today, are at www.americanwest.com/trails/pages/mormtrl.htm

Details of Mormon Grove are at www.atchisonkansas.net/Tourism/MormGrov.htm 

The diary of Hans Peter Emanuel Hoth 1853-4 and the “History of Utah 1540-1886” by Hubert Howe Bancroft, pub San Francisco 1889 may be found at the site of the Utah Lighthouse Ministry whose aim is to “document problems with the claims of Mormonism and compare LDS doctrines with Christianity”  www.utlm.org/navonlinebooks

Full details of the grasshopper problem can be found in “Pestiferous Ironclads:  The Grasshopper Problem in Pioneer Utah” by Davis Bitton and Linda P Wilcox, from the Utah Historical Quarterly, 46#4 on http://historytogo.utah.gov/ironclads.html

Details of the Living History Cemetery Tour at Ogden are at www.mcoffice.com/belnap/go.html

Details of the Cotton Mission may be found at www.media.utah.edu/UHE/c/COTTONMISSION.html

The article on Brigham Young from the Utah History Encyclopaedia is online at www.media.utah.edu.html

Details on the Relief Society from http://historytogo.utah.gov.html

"Family Life on the Trail West" by Elliot West in History Today 12 Dec 1992

"New Horizons for the American West" by Margaret Walsh in History Today 3 Mar 1994

"The First Mormon Mission to Britain" by Agnes M Smith in History Today 7 Jul 1987

For general information on the Mormons, there are many web sites – a search will produce an enormous amount of information.