Later arrivals join the Faceby Mormons in Utah

Family and friends had been left behind when the Faceby villagers left for America in 1855.  Some of them were able to make the journey themselves much later.

James and Isabella Stanger travel to Utah 1869

The home of James Stanger and his wife Isabella had been the centre of Mormon missionary activity in Faceby, but in 1855 when their three youngest children left for Utah, they stayed behind with their sons James and John.

James Stanger junior(1815-98), a farm labourer, had married Ann Elliott of Hutton Rudby in 1839.  Their eighth child, Henry, was baptised in Faceby in May 1855 - his uncles and aunt had, by then, arrived at Mormon Grove in Kansas Territory.  James and Ann did not become Mormons.  By 1861, James was farming 45 acres at Faceby on his own account, and within a few years he moved his family to Kirby Sigston, where he farmed 75 acres at Sigston Lodge.  From there he went to be at the bedside of the Revd Robert Barlow of Hutton Rudby during his last illness, and registered the death recording his relationship to Mr Barlow as 'cousin'.  He and his wife Ann are buried at Faceby.

By the time the Mormon missionaries arrived in Faceby, John Stanger (1819-98) and his wife Anna Winter were living about ten miles away, at Landmoth-with-Catto near Leake.  They were farming 100 acres at 'Marrigold Hill' (later Marigold Hall, and now Marigold Farm) - this had been Anna's father's farm.

In 1852, their daughter Isabella was born, and in 1854, Anna gave birth to Mary Ann. But within weeks, Anna was dead and John was left with two small children.  It seems very likely that his parents moved to Landmoth to help John after their younger children left for Utah.  Within weeks of the departure of the Faceby Saints, John's baby daughter also died.



By the time of the 1861 Census, John was employing one labourer and in his household were his 9 year old daughter Isabella, his parents James and Isabella, and a cousin Jane Simpson, aged 62 and born in Brompton, near Northallerton.

In 1869 George Stanger returned to England from Utah.  His departure from Liverpool at the end of his stay was recorded:

“Elder George Simpson left this port for New York, on the steamship Colorado, Dec 1.  He had been on a visit to his relatives in this country, four of whom accompanied him on his return.”  

He was going home with his parents, both by then aged nearly 80.

Travelling by steamship and railway, their journey was far shorter than the gruelling passage taken by George in 1855, and they were able to join their children in Utah, where Isabella died in 1874 and James in 1880.

Their 17 year old granddaughter Isabella and her baby son James travelled with them.  James had been born in Landmoth at the beginning of the year.  Information on the IGI records his father's name as John Pickersgill; his parents were not married.  He was to grow up in the family of Isabella and her husband William Amidan (Kennedy), whom she married in July 1875 in Salt Lake City.

John Stanger travels to Utah 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.


Frances Etherington joins her family 1884

Frances Etherington and her husband James Bulmer 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.

They had a much easier journey than the pioneers of 1855, 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.

William Wilson joins his brother 1888

Mrs 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. 

Another Cleveland family in Utah

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 senior (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.