MARY
ANN GITTINS/GITTENS GALBRAITH
Herefordshire,
England is in the north of England and not far from the Roman-built Hadrian’s
Wall. It is a well wooded
county and Ridgeway Cross was in a small rural wooded area a short distance
west of the village and parish of Cradley which has a village shop & post
office and St. James Church with burial grounds nearby.
John
Benbow was
a member of a Methodist group called the “United Brethern” and who invited Wilford
Woodruff and other “Mormons” to preach to him & other members of their
congregation. Hill Farm and the Benbow home is a short distance from the
village of Cradley and many inhabitants of the Cradley parish would have been
able to attend the preaching meetings and hear what Wilford Woodruff had to say.
In
Ridgeway Cross lived the family of Timothy Gittens and Hannah Cresswell and
their 9 children. The youngest child,
Mary Ann Gittens, was born at Ridgeway Cross 15 August 1833. Mary Ann’s father, Timothy, was born in Bishop’s
Frome and her mother, Hannah, was born in Cradley.
Both parents died and were buried at Cradley. Her father died in 1837 at the age of 51,
just 5 months before Mary Ann’s 4th birthday, leaving her mother a
widow to care for several young children.
The area was an agricultural area that required
a lot of hard labor. During harvest time
of cherry-picking, hop-picking and hay making, even the children were required
to help with the work. The cherry, apple
and pear trees of hundreds of orchards filled the countryside with blossoms in
the springtime and with abundant fruit in autumn along with acres of hop
fields, all providing work for local people of all ages. It was a very busy farming community, which was reliant on
horses and on raising sheep and cattle as well as crops. Occupations included blacksmiths,
wheelwrights and masons as well as farmers.
Women too were workers for hire as every week a “carrier” would bring
gloves from Worcester for the local gloveresses to sew. Some women were dressmakers, some were
spinners of wool, and some were also laundresses.
There were several schools set up in the area with boys in one
school and girls in another; but since the family was without a father and
provider, Mary Ann probably was unable to get much schooling. Many times the
children were exposed to illnesses in the schools that ranged from colds to
measles and whooping cough due to the very unhygienic conditions. We don’t know whether Mary Ann was educated
in one of these schools or not, although by the mid-1850’s more schooling was
available to those who lived in the village of Cradley.
George Summers (or Somers), who was Mary Ann’s first
husband, came from Cradley so we could assume they may have met at the local
parish church or other village activities.
George’s father, Thomas, was listed in the 1838 listing of landowners
with 236 acres.
The ship log has this entry for them:
"Mon. 28. [Mar 1853] -- The ship Falcon sailed from Liverpool , England
SOMERS, George <1831> Falcon 1853
Age: 22 Origin: Moors, Worcester
Note: BMR, p.146
GITTINS, Mary Ann <1833> Falcon 1853
Age: 20 Origin: Worcester
Note: BMR, p.156
The
Church had four funding plans at the time.
First, they could pay their own expenses but travel on and in Church
arranged ships, river boats, and wagon trains.
As a second method, immigrants could pay their way to America and then
stop and work until they could afford to move on to Utah. Third, some had their transportation expenses
prepaid by someone in Utah. Fourth, they
could be assisted, in all or part, by the Church’s Perpetual Emigrating Fund
(PEF), in return for which they signed a promissory note to pay back, with
interest, all expenses the PEF covered for them.
They
are listed as being on the PEF for the voyage. In 1852 the estimated cost for
an adult to travel from Liverpool to Salt Lake was 20 English pounds. A pound then equaled about 5 American
dollars, so 20 pounds was worth about $100 then which would have been quite a
large sum for the 2 of them.
They
arrived at New Orleans, Louisiana May 18, 1853, then were put on the steamer
“St. Nicholas” the 20 May 1853 to sail to St. Louis, Missouri, up the
Mississippi river and then on to Keokuk, Iowa eight days later arriving there
about May 28. Here they spent the next 2 weeks or more getting acquainted with
camp life, learning how to cook over the outdoor fires, how to set up their
tents, and how to care for and to hitch up and drive their oxen with the wagons. They were assigned to the Appleton M. Harmon
wagon company with 10-12 people allotted to one wagon and tent for sleeping and
baggage purposes. The people walked leaving the wagon room for the baggage. Mary Ann is listed in the Harmon Company roster as “Summers,
Mary Ann Gittens, female, age 19, from England, wife of George Summers.”
Many
companies had to lighten their loads by discarding excess baggage. This meant
they had to throw away trunks, wooden boxes and even some books. They made bags
for their clothes. The locks &
hinges were removed from the boxes then the boxes were piled together &
burned. Crocks, extra cooking utensils,
and anything that could be dispensed with had to be gotten rid of. The inhabitants of the Keokuk area got lots
of things for a few vegetables or a little milk.
On
June 12, provisions for a month were passed among the group of Saints. The
company left Keokuk on June 16, 1853 with 200 people. Captain Harmon’s group
had 22 PEF wagons. All able bodied men were called to watch over the cattle and
wagons at night to be sure the stock didn’t wander off. There were 2 well-established routes across
Iowa and the Harmon Company took the roads used by Saints from Nauvoo in 1846
to reach Council Bluffs.
The
goal was to travel 20 miles per day but it was during the rainy season and the
rain ran through the tents and the wagon covers. They sometimes had to put up their tents and
put a stove inside the tent when it was too wet to build a campfire. Many times they bogged down in mud holes and
the streams and creeks had no bridges so they had to wallow through as best
they could.
When they reached Council Bluffs beside the Missouri River,
the companies resupplied and did repairs for the long trip to Utah and waited
their turn to cross the river on the busy ferryboats. They crossed the Missouri on July 14, 1853
and began the long journey across the plains with the normal challenges faced
by all the wagon trains and their occupants.
They encountered Indians but they were peaceful. They saw many buffalo
and killed at least two for their provisions.
Wolves got into and destroyed some of their cattle. They had oxen die and cattle stray; one ox
was bitten by a rattlesnake and it died.
On one occasion when they came to a steep high cliff, they had to double
team each wagon for 1 ½ miles. They
repaired their wagons many times. They
even had to put shoes on some of the oxen and cows. After a long, grueling voyage across the
plains, the Harmon Company arrived in the Salt Lake Valley October 16, 1853.
George
& Mary Ann went to Bountiful, Utah to settle and their first son, Edward
Archibald was born in Bountiful on December 4, 1854. George then married Emma Hodges 8 months
later at Kaysville. It is unknown
exactly what happened but the family rumor is that Mary Ann was not in favor of living in polygamy and left George and
moved to Provo where their 2nd son Samuel Henry was born November 4,
1857. He passed away in Provo sometime
in 1858.
Shortly before the death of Samuel, Mary Ann met
John Cameron Galbraith from Scotland. He
had been a member of the John A. Hunt oxen train which had followed along with
the Willie & Martin handcart companies and also suffered the cold and
starvation. When the rescuers arrived
& took the handcart people on to the valley, John was one of the 20 men who
wintered over at Devil’s Gate. John
arrived in Provo sometime in 1857 and was on the rolls of the Priesthood of the
Provo 4th ward in February of 1858.
John purchased the burial plot in the Provo Cemetery for
Mary Ann’s little son, Samuel in 1858 so the assumption can be made that they
married sometime in 1858. Her son, Edward Archibald, used the name of Galbraith
all his life.
The
church was not keeping records of marriages at that time due to the persecution
of the polygamists, but when they went to the Endowment House for their Temple
work and sealing in 1862 Mary Ann was registered under her married name of
Galbraith for her endowments.
John and Mary Ann’s first daughter, Catherine Hannah, was
born March 20, 1859 in Provo. She was
given both grandmothers’ names as Catherine was John’s mother’s name and Hannah
was Mary Ann’s mother. Catherine married
Isaac Charles Smith 23 December 1878 in Richmond, Utah.
On February
11, 1862 , their 2nd daughter, Mary Ann, was born in Provo , being named for
her mother. She married Edward Lamb 28
October 1884 in Utah.
November 30, 1864 brought another daughter to the home and
she was named Margaret Janet, possibly named after 2 of John’s sisters. She married Brigham Williamson Nelson in 1883
at Weber, Utah.
John & Mary Ann
moved to Smithfield, Utah and her first son, Edward Archibald is listed in the Smithfield
ward records as being baptized in Smithfield on July 8, 1866.
Their youngest child, Martha Elizabeth, was born in
Smithfield March 26, 1867. She married
Paul Rasmussen August 6, 1888 in Dillon, Montana.
Their family home was a one-room log home at first, located
in the center of Smithfield. Later, a lean-to room was added on the back for
more space for everyone.
On July 5, 1869, John was killed in an accident while
getting logs out of the nearby mountain canyon leaving Mary Ann as a widow at
the age of 36 with one son and 4 daughters to care for.
Four years later on July 8, 1872,
she married Joseph Turner in Smithfield and they had 2 sons:Paul Timothy Turner
who was born September 4, 1873 and died when only a few months old in 1874. James Frederick Turner was born April 1, 1876
in Smithfield. Mary Ann is listed in the 1880 census of Smithfield with her
children but Joseph is not listed so he apparently was away from the house when
the census taker came. Joseph passed way September 23, 1886 in Smithfield, Utah
leaving Mary Ann again a widow.
The
family later moved to the Snake River Valley of Idaho where her son Edward
& his family had moved, and they were living in Lyman, Bingham County,
Idaho when she died February 8, 1888.
This
left James Frederick, who was now 12 years old, to be cared for by her oldest
son, Edward Archibald, and his wife, Ann Sharp Galbraith whom he had married 8
Feb 1875 in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City.
Mary Ann left no real record of herself other than who her
parents were and where she was born so our story of her is compiled through
research and family records.
She was only 55 years old when she died but had lived a life
of hard work and many heartbreaks and disappointments. She had left parents and siblings behind in
England coming to Zion, married aboard ship and spent her honeymoon on the
emigrant ship. The journeys aboard the ship and in the wagon train were very
hard for a young English girl who was not used to such conditions or the hot,
dry weather across the plains.
Then she
was deserted by her husband who preferred to be a polygamist so she moved south
to Provo on her own. She lost 2 infants
and 2 husbands to death. She was a
strong woman and stayed faithful to the Gospel throughout her lifetime.
SOURCES:
Cradley historical information, maps, & pictures taken
from “Cradley-A Village History” by Wynell M. Hunt purchased in the Cradley
Village Shop in England, 2008
“England Births
and Christenings, 1538-1975," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/JW2N-CJC
: Mary Anne Gittins, 25 Aug 1833.
Copy of Application for Endowments, Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints, LDS Church Membership records, Application for Endowments
for both John Cameron Galbraith and Mary Ann Gittins Galbraith giving 2 August
1862 as date of endowments and date of sealing.
"United
States Census, 1880," index and images, FamilySearch
(https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/MNSJ-PV2 :, Mary A. Galbraith,
Smithfield, Cache, Utah, United States; citing sheet 212A, family 0, NARA
microfilm publication T9-1336
"United
States Census, 1870," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/MNCR-JV7,
Mary Galbreth, Utah, United States; citing p. 1, family 5, NARA microfilm
publication M593, FHL microfilm 553109.
"United States
Census, 1860," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/MH2W-W91
Mary A Galbraith, , Utah, Utah; citing "1860 U.S. Federal Census -
Population," <i>Fold3.com</i>; p. 306, family 2121, NARA
microfilm publication M653; FHL microfilm 805314.
Smithfield,
Utah Ward Records Film # 0025611
Eastern Idaho
Death Records, BYU-I http://abish.byui.edu/specialCollections/famhist/Obit/searchDetail.cfm
Family records in possession of several family members
Compiled by Darline G. Burke
October 2013
