bullet Benjamin WALTON was born in Amherst, Hillsborough Co., New Hampshire. Parents: Samuel WALTON III and Rebecca DAVIS.

bullet Charles Eugene WALTON Sr. (photo) was born on 24 Aug 1847 in Paw Paw, Lee Co., Illinois. He died on 14 Dec 1923 in Logan, Cache Co., Utah.
Charles Eugene Walton, son of William Harrison and Frances Newell Taylor, was born 24 August 1847 at Pawpaw Grove, Illinois, and came to Utah with his parents in the Garden Grove Company in 1851. When he was living in Bountiful, an interesting experience came into his life. His diary relates:

"In the spring of 1866 1 was called to go to Nebraska and bring a company of immigrants to Salt Lake City. I drove a four mule team to Omaha then went south to Nebraska City where the company was waiting to be picked up. I got home in October of that same year."

These travelers were of the poor of the Church who were being assisted under the Perpetual Emigration Fund Company. The wagon train in which Charles Eugene was called to help was the largest ever sent out by the Church. Milton R. Hunter (Utah, the Story of Her people, p. 268) wrote:

"The largest wagon train assisting immigrants to Utah was organized in 1866. Ten separate companies including 456 teamsters, 3, 042 oxen, 397 wagons, 89 horses, 134 mules besides 49 mounted guards are said to have assisted that year in bringing settlers to Utah."

On 23 February 1867 Charles Eugene Walton and Jane McKechnie were married. She was the daughter of John and Jane Bee McKechnie. Her mother was a daughter of George and Janet Aitchinson Bee, and a granddaughter of William Bee.

In June, 1870 Charles Eugene and Jane moved to Bear River Valley seeking land for a new home. In 1871 they, with their three children and his parents (William Harrison and Frances Walton) moved to a place in the valley where they helped establish the settlement of Woodruff, Utah. On 4 Mar 1872 Charles Eugene was appointed road supervisor. He was apparently a storekeeper as he mentions in his diary that in 1876 his store was organized into a cooperative, In the summer of 1878 he recorded in his diary:

"Father and I went to Ogden to work on Uncle Andrew Walton's threshing machine. We arrived the first of August and commenced work that day. We threshed around Ogden and Plain City all fall and then returned to Woodruff." In the fall of 1879 the Charles Eugene family was one of 80 families called by President John Taylor to go to San Juan County to settle that part of Utah. On 1 October 1879 he took his family, and in company with Samuel Bryson, began the long and hard journey. He wrote:

"Our outfit consisted of a pair of wild bulls, a yoke of wild steers, four horses, a mare and colt and 30 head of stock." After traveling many days they reached what was then known as "Forty Mile Springs" where they joined the company that had been called from other districts to colonize the "San Juan Mission." While they camped at Forty Mile Springs explorers were sent ahead to lay out a route for the continuance of the journey. They returned with the disheartening report that "a bird couldn't fly over the route; it looks impossible to take a team over it."

Only men of great experience, men with faith, determination, and with a real willingness to cooperate could have accomplished the task of building a road through the dangerous rocky terrain that lay between them and their destination. Levi Edgar Young in The Founding of Utah, p. 236, said, "it is probable that no colonizers of the West ever had greater difficulties in building roads than had the pioneers of San Juan."

They left Forty Mile Springs, and after weeks of hard travel, battling storms, cold and hot winds, mud and dust, they reached the great Colorado River, or rather, reached the edge of the plateau above the river chasm. There, on the windy desert near the edge of the canyon wall, these weary pioneers camped six weeks with only the shelter of tents and wagon covers to protect them. They gathered the desert brush to keep their campfires burning. Water was scarce as evidenced by the notation in the journal of Kuman Jones: "We rejoiced when the early wet snow fell. As it melted it filled the holes in the rocks and furnished culinary water for at least a day."

Daily they discussed the problem of how they would get their wagons across that mighty chasm. Great discouragement and pessimism prevailed. Some wanted to abandon the project and seek another route, but winter was upon them and snow covered the mountains at their backs. Trapped and running short of food, they ground horse feed in coffee mills with which to make their bread. In this great emergency, their leaders called a prayer meeting, and over 200 discouraged souls knelt in united supplication to their Heavenly Father. Captain Silas Smith, in his humble appeal, said, "Let's give it a trial."

Bishop Jens Nielson prophesied that if the company would proceed as they had been called to do, that a road would be made and a crop raised in the San Juan Mission next year. The people, feeling the truth of, his promise, spontaneously burst into AA song and the reassuring words of that stirring hymn, "The Spirit of God Like a Fire is Burning" echoed through the evening air.

With hope renewed, their spirits lifted. That may have been one of the nights that, with small campfires burning, they danced in the moonlight, with happier hearts than they had had for a long time. Eugene and a few others in the company tuned their violins. It is heartwarming to think of music and hand clapping and perhaps on occasion "Yippee" from the lips of young men whose lives were dedicated to reclaiming the wilderness of San Juan County. Next morning at sunrise the camp was bustling with preparations for the crossing of the Colorado. In their hazardous zig-zag down the steep incline, nine horses were lost but the feat was accomplished without the loss of one human life. They had conquered. In January, 1880 they crossed the mighty Colorado.

On 6 April 1880, they reached their destination at a spot they called Bluff. Their first necessity was to get ditches dug to haul water for irrigating the valley. Eugene wrote: "We raised the crop that year that Bishop Nielson promised we would raise." The next project was building the fort in which they lived during 1880 and 1881. That year they surveyed a town site and began to build on lots outside the fort. Bluff was situated under the bluffs and cliffs overlooking the San Juan River. Cottonwood trees growing in abundance lent cooling shade and dead timber was gathered for fuel. Rock in abundance furnished material for building their homes which strung in a line along the bank of the river. The thrifty pioneers were enterprising in building reservoirs to conserve the precious water and increase the value of their land by irrigation.

In 1880 less than three weeks after they had settled there, the governor and legislature of the Utah Territory designated Bluff as the seat of San Juan County, and a selectman, superintendent of schools, and other officers were chosen, Silas S. Smith was appointed probate judge, and Charles Eugene Walton, Sr., as county clerk. The latter was also sustained as stake clerk when the first LDS organization was effected. He was one of the directors in the San Juan Go-operative Company organized in 1882, which paid an annual dividend of forty percent and continued in business until January, 1920. (Andrew Jensen, Church Historian)

The people suffered many hardships and severe losses to property due to the overflow of the San Juan River. Often the water rose so high in the ditches that dams were broken and soil and crops were washed away. Because of this the people decided to break vp the mission and move to a more favorable location. The President of the Church sent Joseph F. Smith of the Council of the Twelve to Bluff to investigate the situation and release the people if he thought it proper to do so. After holding conference in which divine guidance was humbly invoked, President Smith came to the conclusion that the people should remain in Bluff and hold the mission intact.

Nevertheless, those who wished to move away were released with the blessing of The First Presidency, but he promised that those who would remain would be doubly blessed. A few left, but Charles Eugene Walton elected to cast his lot with the majority who accepted their leader's decision. Joseph F. Smith, personally, had asked him to stay. In his diary he wrote: "I told him would, and I have never regretted it for the Lord has prospered us as Brother Joseph F. said He would."

The mighty Colorado and San Juan Rivers were conquered in this great pioneer venture. An entry in his diary seven years later, 9 March 1887, concerned "a settlement in North Montezuma." At that time he, with a few older men of experience and some younger ones, were called by Church leaders to open up that part of the country for settlement. In Utah Since Statehood, vol 4, is an article on Eugene Walton and his son Charles Eugene. One paragraph reads, in part, "in 1888, Mr. Walton moved to Monticello, having laid out the town site secured the previous year." This statement agrees with the entry in his diary 9 March 1887.

Page after page of his briefly written diary gives living glimpses of a life of rich activity. Another entry reads: "On the 10rh of June I worked on the irrigation ditch andl went to singing school at night. I attended Board fof Directors meeting in the evening and had a spelling school. At school this evening I lectured on ancient history."

Again he wrote: "I went to Bluff to attend Court. Jane accompanied me. went through the record books and found I was in debt to the County for seventy-three dollars. I cut lucerne hay for John Rogerson, we cleaned out the stables and next day. I fixed fence, built a counter and fixed up the threshing machine. helped mark goods for the mercantile store. I attended Court and paid thirty-five dollars of the money I owed the County."

A contract was let, the record stated, to "Superintendent Charles Eugene Walton to complete the road from Verdue to the wash in the bottom of Devil's Canyon." They were living in Monticello when Jane went with her husband to Bluff to attend Court. The story of their lives is woven into the history of San Juan.

As the horses trotted along the dusty road their thoughts were tranquil. They were re-living and understanding this marvelous life. Jane remembered the day when the first mail-carrying team jogged into Bluff with the United States mail. Eugene smiled in memory. They had worked, negotiated and waited "two years, six months and twenty days" for this great event. It was 26 October 1882 when the outside world opened to the joyful people in this growing community.

Jane had served as president of the stake Relief Society since its first organization. Her work carried her all over San Juan County to Moab and part of New Mexico and to Mancos and Cortez in Colorado. In buggy or wagon, in heat or cold, she seldom, if ever, failed in the duties of her assignment. That was the integrity of Jane, who as a young girl walked all the way across the plains as her mother said, "on a diet of corn and a small ration of buffalo meat when it could be had."

Jane had a joyous disposition and loved dancing. A letter written by her to "Dear Sarah" told of good times at a bow dance and picnic, a cap dance and picnic, an oyster supper and a dance when a glittering Christmas tree was the focal point of the festivities. The picnic was always a favorite on such occasions. Sometimes dances were broken up by rough cowboys who drove cattle over Utah, Arizona, and the Mexican border. Drunken fights and "shootin' up the town" were not uncommon.

Strange, that on a 24th of July celebration when flags were flying and streets festooned red, white, and blue bunting, that the dance was 'crashed' by a rowdy group, and a stray bullet, fired from the gun of a drunken cowboy struck Jane. They rushed her to her home where she died in the presence of her broken-hearted husband and son. A blood-stained floor bore mute testimony of a noble life wiped out on a rugged frontier. Her death was the fulfillment of her own father's statement when he appeared to her and said, "I will leave you now, but will come again when you are forty-five years old." Her death on the 24th of July, 1891, was eight days after her forty-fifth birthday.

Two years after the tragedy of his wife's death, Eugene accepted a call from the presidency of the Church to fill a mission in the Southern States. This was the first call for missionaries from San Juan Stake. He served two years, from 1894-1896. In 1904 he moved to Logan to be near the temple, where he served for many years. He died 14 December 1923.

Charles is our 2nd Great Grandfather Parents: William Harrison WALTON and Frances Newell TAYLOR.

He was married to Jane MCKECHNIE on 22 Feb 1867 in Logan, Cache Co., Utah. Children were: Charles Eugene WALTON Jr., Frances Magnolia WALTON, Leona Jane WALTON.

Children were: Charles Eugene WALTON Jr..

bulletCharles Eugene WALTON Jr. (photo) was born on 28 Jan 1868 in Bountiful, Davis Co., Utah. He died on 9 May 1947 in Monticello, San Juan Co., Utah. He was a Postmaster in Monticello, San Juan Co., Utah.
Charles Eugene Walton Jr., son of Charles Eugene and Jane McKechnie, was born 28 January 1868 in Bountiful, Utah, and died 9 May 1947 in Monticello, Utah. He married Emma Louise Hyde, born 27 November 1879, Chicken Creek, Juab County, Utah. She died 6 July 1954 in Monticello, Utah, and was the daughter of William Edward and Emma Mariah (Tolman) Hyde.

When Charles Jr. was about four years old, he moved with his parents to Woodruff, where his father engaged in farming and stock raising. It became Charles' full time job to herd the cattle. At age seven he started to school in a typical frontier schoolhouse, where one teacher held sway over the temporary destinies of all grades and ages. His first teacher was Van Putnam, grandson of Ruth Walton and Israel Putnam. Young Charles was about 10 the summer the family lived in the Hilliard Mountains of Wyoming where his father was engaged in cutting timber and cord wood. The boy was sent out on horseback each day to deliver milk to the woodcutters. One day on his regular delivery route his serenity was considerably upset by the demands of his sister Maggie (Magnolia) to accompany him. He didn't want any 'old girl' along! But the ancestral Scottish tenacity of purpose was as strong in her as it was in him, and; hers prevailed. Perched up behind him on the pony as he jogged along the woodcutters trail with his burden of children, with milk cans hanging on either side, Maggie was satisfied, and they soon forgot their differences in enjoying the loveliness of the forest.

Unbeknown to them a forest fire had broken out that morning while they were gone, and had crossed the trail the children must take on their way home. As they approached the area they could see the fire and were terrified, but thinking of home and their mother waiting for them on the other side of: the flames, there seemed to the boy nothing to do but to ride through it. Imagine the consternation of the woodcutters behind, and their mother ahead of them, each cut off from attempting to rescue the two trapped children.

But with the daring of youth, and the urgency of the situation, Charles gripped the reins desperately in his hands and crying to his sister to hold tight around his waist because "we're going through and we're going to ride like hell!" he frantically urged the pony at a gallop through the blazing timber, and miraculously reached the other side in time to help his mother drag the furniture, including the heavy iron cookstove, from the little log house. The fire passed without harm, and with grateful hearts they dragged their belongings back into the house.

In October, 1879 the father received a call from the Church to take his family and possessions and join a company that was called to go into San Juan County to establish the San Juan Mission. Indians had been making raids on white settlements over a wide radius of country, stealing horses and making trouble in general. The main purpose in calling these settlers was to cultivate peace and friendliness with these tribes, and to establish law and order among them.

Apostle Erastus Snow and Silas S. Smith were in charge of this mission. Silas Smith was appointed leader of the mission, but having also been elected to the legislature, he left Jens Nielson and Platte Lyman in charge. Charles was 11 at that time. His duty for this journey was that of herd-boy. He was to make the long trip on horseback and drive the stock. Being a boy he found much to make the trip interesting, and felt few of the worries or responsibilities of the undertaking. When the company reached Hole-in- the-Rock where they encamped for the winter, he also had his duties around the camp. There was no road so the men had to literally blast out and enlarge a fissure inside the opening in the rock, wide enough to allow wagons to go through.

This notch had to be made to eliminate a 45-foot drop. During this operation a rope was tied around Charles' slender waist, and he was lowered over the edge of the cliff, to place the black powder in the proper crevices and prepare it for the explosion.

At another time, he was one of about 20 men and boys who had heavy ropes tied around their bodies to hold the wagons back, when attempting a steep descent, to make sure there would be no accident if the brakes on the wagon failed to hold. When one wagon was safe at the bottom, the men went back up the mile long incline to help the next. Other days, Charles carried water up the steep trail for the toiling men. This road was completed in late December, and the first company went through. The second company went through on Charles' birthday--28 January 1880-- and he and the rest of the family ferried across the Colorado River, on the journey to their new home.

The duties of a boy in a pioneer settlement were many, Charles became the herd-boy for the whole settlement. He established a friendship among the Indians which lasted throughout his life. He swam with them in the San Juan River, and played with them in their camps. He often visited with them during their festivals such as their corn dances and rain dances. As he grew older, the merchants hired him to cross the river in a boat and bring back the Navajos with their wool, goatskins, and other barter they might have to trade in Bluff. Among these tribes were the Piutes who came to his home when they were hungry, knowing they would be fed. This hospitality was returned when he visited their wickiups.

During the winter of 1886-87 there was a plan afoot for the settling of a mission in the higher country. Accordingly an irrigation company was organized in the fall of 1887. Charles, then about 19, with his father and several men, were called to establish a settlement in the Blue Mountain country. That fall, they were kept busy making irrigation ditches and surveying a town site. Charles said that for his year's work he received one ton of hay, four bushels of oats, four sacks of potatoes, and six bushels of wheat.

The next summer, with the coming of a number of families who were to live in the new settlement, one of the first problems was choosing an appropriate name for the new community. The older men of: the town met to choose the name, and President Hammond suggested Antioch as a good name. They decided to meet another day to make it official, but the younger men and girls were not happy with the name Antioch, the capitol city of Syria. They secretly met together and on the suggestion of Charles, who had just read the Life of Thomas Jefferson and liked the name of his famous mansion in Virginia, decided that Month cello would be a better name. They launched a clever "whispering campaign" and circulated much propaganda in favor of that name instead of Antioch. So subtly was it done that when the older men met to make the name official, they seemed to have forgotten their original choice and on motion of Charles Eugene Walton, Sr., the name Monticello was presented and unanimously accepted.

When Monticello was dignified by the government with a post office and mail service in 1890, Charles was appointed its first postmaster, the commission being granted by Benjamin Harrison, then President of the United States. With the exception of eight years, he held the position until October, 1934.

When Charles, Jr. was 25 his father was called on a mission to the Southern States, and Charles was called to be second counselor in the bishopric to fill the vacancy made by his father's release.

An article in Utah Since Statehood reads: "Charles Eugene Walton obtained a common school education at Bluff and one year at the Brigham Young University. In 1901 he went with his father to Logan where he worked in the sugar factory. In later years he returned to Monticello and has since been engaged in farming and cattle raising in addition to his city and county work. He is the owner of excellent farm property and is interested in the roller mill and water and light company."

In January, 1935 he became treasurer of San Juan County for a term of four years. He served his Church as bishop (1923-28), high councilman, Sunday School superintendent, Young Men's Mutual Improvement Association president, and as ward clerk.

Charles Jr. is our Great Grandfather
Parents: Charles Eugene WALTON Sr. and Jane MCKECHNIE. Parents: Charles Eugene WALTON Sr..

He was married to Emma Louise HYDE on 28 Jan 1896 in Monticello, San Juan Co., Utah. Children were: Pearl Louise WALTON, Leona Jean WALTON, Frances Ila WALTON, Olive WALTON, William Charles WALTON.

bullet Dana WALTON (photo) was born on 13 May 1830 in Mexico, Oxford Co., Maine. Parents: Arthur WALTON and Martha Ann WALTON.

He was married to Rebecca CARD on 14 Dec 1851.

bulletDavis WALTON was born in Amherst, Hillsborough Co., New Hampshire. Parents: Samuel WALTON III and Rebecca DAVIS.

bullet Frances Adeline WALTON (photo) was born on 8 May 1857. She died on 3 Jan 1896 in Bountiful, Davis Co., Utah. Parents: William Harrison WALTON and Frances Newell TAYLOR .

She was married to Thomas Harold HARRISON on 8 Jun 1877 in Woodruff, Rich Co., Utah.

bullet Frances Ila WALTON was born on 7 Feb 1900 in Monticello, San Juan Co., Utah. She died on 17 Dec 1984 in Flagstaff, Coconino Co., Arizona. Parents: Charles Eugene WALTON Jr. and Emma Louise HYDE .

She was married to Horace Wilson ALLRED on 20 Oct 1920 in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake Co., Utah.

bullet Frances Magnolia WALTON (photo) was born on 31 Mar 1869 in Bountiful, Davis Co., Utah. She died on 7 Sep 1918 in Bluff, San Juan Co., Utah. Parents: Charles Eugene WALTON Sr. and Jane MCKECHNIE.

She was married to John Ezra BAILEY on 2 Jun 1892 in Monticello, San Juan Co., Utah.

bullet George Ossian WALTON was born on 14 Dec 1850 in Montrose, Lee Co., Iowa. He died on 18 Jun 1851. Parents: William Harrison WALTON and Frances Newell TAYLOR.

bullet George Washington WALTON (photo) was born on 11 Oct 1861. He died on 10 Nov 1953. Parents: William Harrison WALTON and Frances Newell TAYLOR.

He was married to Josephine Bonaparte FOSS on 22 Jul 1882 in Woodruff, Rich Co., Utah.

bullet Harrison A. WALTON was born on 28 Nov 1846 in Paw Paw, Lee Co., Illinois. He died on 15 Dec 1849. Parents: William Harrison WALTON and Frances Newell TAYLOR.

bullet John WALTON was born on 29 Sep 1849. He died Infant. Parents: William Harrison WALTON and Frances Newell TAYLOR .

bullet Joseph Henry WALTON was born on 2 Jun 1863. He died on 7 Nov 1942 in Auburn, Lincoln Co., Wyoming. Parents: William Harrison WALTON and Frances Newell TAYLOR.

He was married to Mary Ann WHEELOCK on 22 Dec 1881 in Woodruff, Rich Co., Utah.

bullet Joshua WALTON was born in Amherst, Hillsborough Co., New Hampshire. He died in Fayette, Kennebec Co., Maine. Parents: Samuel WALTON III and Rebecca DAVIS.

bullet Leona Jane WALTON (photo) was born on 19 Aug 1872 in Bountiful, Davis Co., Utah. She died on 9 Sep 1942 in Murray, Salt Lake Co., Utah. Parents: Charles Eugene WALTON Sr. and Jane MCKECHNIE.

She was married to Francis NIELSON on 30 Nov 1892 in Logan, Cache Co., Utah.

bullet Leona Jean WALTON (photo) was born on 3 Jan 1899 in Monticello, San Juan Co., Utah. She died on 20 Jul 1977 in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake Co., Utah.
Leona Jean Walton was the 2nd born in a Mormon family of 5 children, 4 girls and 1 boy. Her father, one of the original founders of the towns of Bluff and Monticello in Southern Utah, was an important man in town. He was the town Postmaster and active in the local Mormon ward. Later he would serve as Bishop.

Jean owned one of the first Kodak mass produced cameras, an unusual contraption by today’s standards with a bellows lens. Because of this, much of the early years of her life in Monticello as a teenager and young woman is documented with snapshots.

The Waltons lived across the street from the Baileys in one of the nicer homes in town. When Jean was about 16, Alvin Bailey returned from his church mission. Al took notice of Jean and they started seeing each other. They soon fell in love and made plans to be married in the Salt Lake Temple that spring.

Al was a successful merchant in Monticello, so, prior to marriage, they were able to build their own home across the street from Jean’s parents’ home and adjacent to Al’s parents’ home in Monticello.

In late May 1916, Al and Jean rode in a truck, called the "Stage", to Thompson Springs, where they were able to catch a train to Salt Lake City. They were married in the Salt Lake Temple shortly thereafter. While in Salt Lake, they bought furniture to furnish their new home in Monticello and made arrangements to have it shipped.

Upon returning home, they had to each move back into their parents’ homes until they could borrow enough furniture and supplies to set up housekeeping until their new furniture arrived from Salt Lake.
About a year later, their first child, Richard Quinn, was born.

Al had many business interests in those days. In addition to a successful mercantile and pool hall, he also ran a saw mill outside of town. A few years after marrying Jean, he grew tired of the mercantile and pool hall business, and sold his interest. He used the money to buy a farm on the Vega River, along with some livestock. This farm thrived at first, but eventually ran into serious difficulties, as did many of the farms and ranches in the area. In the mid 1920’s, things became so bad that Al was forced to liquidate the farm to pay debts. It was also around this time that Al probably began to drink.

Around 1925, Jean’s husband was excommunicated from the Mormon Church. Details of the circumstances of this event are sketchy or nonexistent. It is known that Al was unpopular with the local Mormon leaders because of the pool hall, which he had operated in town against their wishes a few years earlier. The fact that he also smoked and drank might also have contributed to his unpopularity in this small Mormon community. This, combined with his difficulties with the farm, made it desirable for Al to leave Monticello.

After unsuccessfully trying to find a job in Salt Lake, Al found a job as a butcher through a missionary friend in Driggs, Idaho. Al left his family, which now included 2 boys, Dick and Bill, who was just an infant, in Monticello while he went up to Driggs to earn enough money to send for his wife and kids. Once Al was established, Jean and the boys got a ride to Thompson Springs, Utah, where they were able to catch a train to Driggs and join Al.

Things went well at first, but then the Depression hit. The store in Driggs failed, and the family moved to Idaho Falls where Al got a job as a butcher/grocer and they lived a couple of years. Al was soon offered a better job in Ogden, so Jean and Al packed up their family and moved again. Al’s boss in Ogden was impressed with Al and wanted him to run a store for him in Delta, Utah, so they packed up the kids again and moved to Delta, where they lived for about 2 years. Business dropped because of the depression, and Al was again out of work. The family packed up one more time and moved to Ogden where Al was again able to find work as a butcher.

The family continued to move from house to house on approximately a yearly basis, but they stayed in the Ogden area. Al held and lost several jobs. This was in the depths of the Great Depression. One summer for a period of time, while living in North Ogden, the family had to subsist almost entirely on apricots from an adjacent orchard.

In the mid 1930’s, Al got a job in Green River, Wyoming, and the family moved once more. This time, the eldest, Dick, stayed behind to finish high school and attend college. They lived in Wyoming for several years and then moved to Salt Lake.

Both of Al and Jean’s boys were drafted and served during World War II. Jean and Al were living at the time in Murray on 39th South near 5th East. Al took a job in Alaska as a butcher during these hard times, and would send his paycheck home to Jean. Jean and Al eventually saved enough money so Al was able to buy and operate his own grocery stores in Salt Lake.

For a while after the war, Al and Jean had their oldest son Dick, his wife Marie, and their 2 children living with them on 39th South until they could earn enough money to buy their own home.

While living on 39th South, Jean was able to pursue her hobbies of growing house plants and gardening. She had many rose bushes and tulips which decorated their yard, and a bay window in the kitchen filled with house plants.

She also enjoyed her numerous grandchildren from Dick and Bill’s large families. Her grandchildren fondly remember those visits to Grandma’s house where Jean would teach them card games, work jigsaw puzzles with them, and where they could help Grandpa in the little farm out back where he would grow vegetables. Grandpa also raised rabbits, which he would sell for food, as well as for pets. It was fun for the grandchildren to see all of the rabbits.

Al continued to struggle with a long term drinking problem. Things eventually became so bad, with episodes of delirium tremens and hospitalization, that Al needed to join Alcoholics Anonymous where he finally got the help he needed to quit drinking.

During these years, Jean had always remained active in the Mormon Church. A strong believer, she spent her later years doing genealogy work and performing temple ceremonies for her ancestors. Al also believed strongly in the Mormon doctrine. After conquering his drinking habit and successfully quitting smoking, Al was able to rejoin the Mormon Church and spend his last years as an active and productive member. He was also very active in Alcoholics Anonymous, giving speeches and helping others conquer their drinking problem.

Soon after Al retired, Jean and Al sold their home in Murray and moved into town. Al died in 1970 at the age of 78. Jean lived another 7 years. She spent much of this time doing genealogy work. She died in 1977 at the age of 78.
Parents: Charles Eugene WALTON Jr. and Emma Louise HYDE.

She was married to Alvin L. BAILEY on 1 Jun 1916 in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake Co., Utah.
Alvin and Jean lived several places in Utah while raising their two boys. They eventually bought a home on 39th S. near 5th E. in Salt Lake.

After retirement, they moved into downtown Salt Lake where they had a modest apartment.

The following describes some of their life during the depression, in Al's words:

In 1917 during the World War One, I took a group of recruits to Green River to be inducted into the army. I tried to volunteer but, because I was married and had two children and was so extensively engaged in farming, which was considered essential to the war effort, I was turned down, so I am not a World War veteran. Soon after the War was the beginning of the Depression. Being broke, I found a job with the U.S. Vanadium Co. in Dry Valley. I stayed with them until they folded up. Stranded again, I got together enough money to get to Salt Lake City, looked around for a job, but found none. I remembered a missionary companion I had in the Southern States Mission, Alma Simmons. I knew he had a business at Driggs, Idaho. I was short of money but, nevertheless, I put in a long distance call. Simmons said he had three grocery stores and meat markets, one in Driggs, one in Tetonia, and one in a mining camp called Sam. This was the only coal mine in the state. Simmons, knowing of my background as a grocer and meat cutter, said to come to Driggs, and I could work in one of his stores. So, with what I had left, I got a ticket to Idaho Falls, transferred there to a train to Driggs. After paying for a room in Idaho Falls and paying the train fare to Driggs, I had nothing left. Passing through Salt Lake City in early June, I had bought myself a cheap straw hat. I reached Driggs about noon. Simmons met me. Delighted with the reunion of so many years since our missionary experience he insisted that we tour his stores, not knowing I had eaten nothing all day. We visited his markets, and we went to his home in Driggs where his wife had prepared dinner. Needless to say, I enjoyed it very much. The next morning, we went to the Driggs market. Here I was installed as manager with a salary of $25.00 a week, half of which was withheld for stock in the Simmons Stores.

After I had accumulated a few dollars, I sent for Jean and the boys. We found a small furnished house that we rented. The Bishop of the Mormon Church in Driggs was the cashier of the Bank where we did our business. Jean came down to the store to help out when I had to go to the slaughter house to kill and dress a beef. The liver we considered worthless, but I had one customer who would come to the store, and I would give him a piece,- no charge. This was during the prohibition years. I had the bootleggers bring me a quart or a pint of their product, and it always came in a fruit jar. That accounts for the mark I acquired across the bridge of my nose. The same fellows brought me a bear one time. When it was dressed out, it looked like a pig. I did not taste the meat, but was told it was delicious. To stimulate business, Mr. Simmons put on a Coupon deal. He gave his customers a book of coupons redeemable at any of his stores. Our Driggs store, however, got most of these customers. This was good at the end of the month when the Sam Mine would pay the Driggs store, and the Store could then pay off its obligations. But, eventually, the crash came. The mine could not pay its debts, and we had between six and seven thousand dollars in coupons. We could not pay our bills, so the creditors came in and took over all three stores. With Mr. Westerburg who had been manager of the Tetonia Store, I went to Idaho Falls. There, we contracted the Sutton Bros. who had three stores, two in Idaho Falls and one in Shelly, a town about eight miles from Idaho Falls. Tom Sutton hired both of us. Westerburg went to Shelly, and I took the Riverside store. I worked there as a meat cutter almost two years.

One day a Mr. Harvey Sewell came into the store and, after looking around awhile, came over to me and said, "Are you satisfied with this job?" I said that I had been looking around for something better. He said that, if I would come to Ogden, he would give me a job at once. I found a man to take my place in the Sutton Market and, with my family, caught the train to Ogden. When we arrived there, we called relatives to see if they could tell us where we could find a house for rent. My Aunt Gertie Weaver said she had several empty apartments on Lincoln Avenue. We rented the old Bailey home from her. This was the home once owned by my grandfather, Henry Bailey. I went to work the next morning for Mr. Sewell. After the third day, he told me he wanted me to go to Delta, Utah, and take charge of the market there. He paid our transportation. I worked in his market for two years. We bought a new Chevrolet during this time, the first car we owned since leaving Monticello. The people of Delta at that time depended almost entirely on raising alfalfa seed as their major income. The price of the seed at this time began to decline rapidly and could not support the county, and Sewell Stores began to lose money, so they decided to get out of business. I was paid off, but I had a wife and two kids and a car that wasn't paid for. We sold the furniture we had acquired, put the rest of our belongings in the car, and took off for Ogden. After arriving there, we found a small place in a very undesirable section of the City, and I went out looking for a job. Safeway had an opening and, with the recommendation of Harvey Sewell, I was given a job in a Safeway market on 24th Street and Wall Ave. The hours were from 8 am to 12 pm. Those days, we closed the store at six in the evening then had to mop the floors, shine the display counters, etc., until midnight. A month or two after working at this place, I was transferred to their store on Washington Ave. Mr. Maxwell was manager. One night they discovered a barrel of cider that had turned hard. The fellows in the store had sampled it. The news spread fast. By closing time, everyone was pretty happy.

I went to work for Dawson Brothers in the O.P.Skaggs system. I had the market on 22nd Street and Washington Blvd. During the depression, I looked from my market just across the street and saw lines of people waiting to receive their quotas of carp which had been seined from the Utah Lake. I did not work long for this store. I was transferred to the 24th Street store. We had a wonderful business here. It took two men in the meat department. It was here I learned the Safeway tricks of the trade. We advertised specials of hams at 10 cents a pound. We cut the center slices out and sold them for 40 cents a pound. What was left was the bone and fat. This job ended when Dawson Bros. realized I was drinking too much. This was in prohibition times, but I had connections with the right people. I would slip out the back door and about a half block up the street and get my bottle. It couldn't last, of course, so they fired me. I walked the streets for days looking for work before I went to the WPA and asked for a job. I got on a job for three days a week at $3.00 a day processing sheepskins. The hides would be put in a solution of some kind, then thrown on the table, and my job was to take the wool off the hides. In most cases, it was quite easy, as the solution in which the hides had been dipped had loosened the wool, so, by scraping across the hide, the wool slipped off. This is about the time of the drought that created the Dust Bowl areas where farmers were forced to sell their livestock before they died of starvation. The government bought the cattle and shipped them to packing plants where they were slaughtered, the meat processed and canned to be distributed to those on relief. I got a job with the American Packing Co. boning the beef. The cattle would be slaughtered and chilled overnight, then brought down on conveyors along the boning tables and, as the quarters of beef came down the line, we would take them off and proceed to take the meat from the bones. After some practice, we could do a side of beef in thirty-five minutes. We were paid by the piece. Sixty five cents for a hind quarter and sixty cents for fronts. I had moved to North Ogden. There was a small orchard, an artesian well supplied our water, but the well run dry in late summer then we carried drinking water from across the street. There was an old school building nearby, and I got extra work there two days a week cleaning brick. The only heat we had in the house was from wood fires. We brought old scrap wood from the building being torn down and cut it up for the kitchen range and the heating stove. Dick had finished High School and was earning some money helping a Mr. Warren.

A salesman I knew, Earnie Valentine, sent me a message that a Mr. Wilford Tallifero in Green River, Wyoming, wanted a butcher to work in one of his stores. He worked for the Piggley Wiggley chain later bought out by the Safeway Stores. I went to Green River where I worked a few weeks until I could send for my family. Dick was going to Weber College, so he stayed in Ogden. Jean and Bill came to Green River, and we rented a small apartment from Mr. Dancoskie. The old couple who owned the place lived in one side of the house and rented us the other side. I worked in the market in Green River for nearly two years at $37.50 a week. I developed a back injury trying to pick up a veal calf from the scales. Had to go to Rock Springs for treatment. (Never finished. Alvin L. Bailey died 24 August 1970)

Children were: Richard Quinn BAILEY, William Walton BAILEY.

bullet Margaret WALTON (photo) was born in 1828 in Mexico, Oxford Co., Maine. Parents: Arthur WALTON and Martha Ann WALTON.

bullet Martha Ann WALTON (photo) was born on 3 Nov 1798 in Alstead, Cheshire Co., New Hampshire. She died in 1853. Parents: Reuben WALTON Jr. and Ruth PEABODY.

She was married to Arthur WALTON in 1821. Children were: William Harrison WALTON, Margaret WALTON, Dana WALTON, Andrew Jackson WALTON.

bullet Moses WALTON was born in Amherst, Hillsborough Co., New Hampshire. He died in Fayette, Kennebec Co., Maine. Parents: Samuel WALTON III and Rebecca DAVIS.

bullet Olive WALTON (photo) was born on 16 Nov 1901 in Monticello, San Juan Co., Utah. She died on 17 Dec 1948. Parents: Charles Eugene WALTON Jr. and Emma Louise HYDE .

She was married to Areland James ALLEN on 2 May 1927 in Monticello, San Juan Co., Utah.

bullet Pearl Louise WALTON (photo) was born on 31 Oct 1896 in Monticello, San Juan Co., Utah. She died on 3 Nov 1967 in Monticello, San Juan Co., Utah. Parents: Charles Eugene WALTON Jr. and Emma Louise HYDE.

bullet Reuben WALTON Sr. was born in 1734 in Hillsborough Co., New Hampshire.
Reuben Walton, son of Samuel and Rebecca Davis, whom she named as one of her minor children in a bond at the rime of her husband's death, was born in Souhegan West, now Amherst, New Hampshire, about 1734-5. The death of his father threw him on his own resources at the age of 14. Provincial papers give the first printed record of him in young manhood, which stated that he was granted one-half of a third division of land in Souhegan West, dated 1 Dec 1759, and that he was among the first "heirs" who had paid the full sum on such lots and shares.

About that time he and Mary Thompson were married. His application for his inheritance, or 'claim' as it was called, suggests their intention of making their home in Amherst. Mary, the daughter of Noah and Susannah (Place) Thompson, was born in Newington, New Hampshire, where she is listed on the church records as being christened on 7 Sep 1735. Her grandson, Artemas Walton, said that she was of Scottish descent and that she possessed a "bright intellect and a happy disposition."

Four of the sons of Reuben and Mary - Benjamin, Artemas, Reuben, and Jonathan - were born in Amherst. They sought land on a new frontier up in the wilderness of Cheshire County, New Hampshire. The settlement was called Limerick, but was incorporated as Stoddard. In 1760 Reuben's name was on the tax list of Amherst and in 1769 he is listed among the first settlers of Limerick, later Stoddard. This was a land grant from the Masonic Proprietors to Colonel Stoddard. The first chartered settlers were John Taggert, Reuben Walton, Alexander Scott, and Archelaus Putnam, who, in a report, stated: "I, myself, went in 1770 and have four acres improved."

From Mr. Taggert we learn that "the nearest town was Peterborough, and that provisions were packed in on their backs through a pathless wilderness where trees were blazed to guide the travelers on their way. In winter it was a great hardship as the "snow was very deep." In these few words is recorded a stark picture of our hardy progenitors struggling uncomplainingly against the harsh realities of their wilderness surroundings, and a deeper appreciation of their steadfast character is impressed on our minds.

Charter records in Provincial Papers give an interesting account of the few men who went to Limerick in 1769. "These men have houses and well toward twelve acres of land cleared up with improvements." An Act of Settlement taken at Limerick on 22 Sep 1771 states that "Reuben Walton came on the 26th day of the 10th month of 1769 with his wife and family. He had a pole house covered in, and three acres of land cleared on lot 6 in range 8." That little house in the clearing was a welcome sight to Mary.

Looking back through the years to that pole house among the trees, one might see in fancy three small boys playing in the sand with their faithful watchdog close by, but five-year-old Reuben was not there. On their journey to the new home an incident occurred that was forever indelibly impressed on the mind of the youngest son, Jonathan. The keeper of the tavern at which they stopped one night had a large "useful" dog. Jonathan had a little pet dog that he loved with all his heart. Perhaps his father thought that the big "useful" dog would fit better into the wilderness life than the little pet. However, that may be, Jonathan's dog was traded to the innkeeper for his watchdog, and the little boy's loss became very real because of the growling unfriendliness of the strange dog.

This incident made a deep and lasting impression on the child's mind and substantiates the fact and the time that Provincial Papers show the move to Stoddard was made. It also proves that four of Reuben and Mary's children were born in Amherst and one in Stoddard.

They continued their journey, taking the trail the pioneers followed, which led through Peterborough. Here another incident, sadder even than the first, took place. For some reason never divulged, the little five-year-old Reuben was left at the home of the Hen. Hugh Wilson, member of the House of Representatives, and the family traveled on without him. This incident affected the whole future of the little boy. No record of the event was made at the time, but threads of it were picked up in later years when the little boy had become a grown man living in the town of Rumford, Maine.

Broken in health and with eight dependents, he applied for a pension for his services in the Revolutionary War. But before that could be granted, positive identification had to be established. This proved to be an almost impossible feat, because Reuben had run away and served in the war under the assumed name of John Thompson. His reason for taking this alias was explained in his application for the pension he sought. It was dated 25 July 1820 in Paris, Maine before Albion Parris, judge of district court.

At that time he gave his age as 54 and listed his dependents as: "Ruth, my wife, Elizabeth, my daughter, age 25, weakly, and able to do little work; Patty, 21, healthy; Sukey, 15, healthy; Charlotte, age 7 years, my granddaughter; Rosannah Virgin, my granddaughter, 6 months, and my mother, Mary, 83 years, feeble."

A statement attached to Reuben's application declared: "I, Reuben Walton, named in the annexed application, on oath declare that previous to my joining the Army in 1780, 1 lived with James Wilson in Peterborough. That dissatisfied with living with said Wilson I left him and joined the Continental Army, and to prevent detection by my old master, I entered the Army under the name of John Thompson. I was advised to this course by Captain Smith who lived neighbor to Wilson and who assisted me in leaving his service. And I do further on oath declare that I continued in the service by the name of John Thompson from the time of my enlistment for the duration of the war."

On the same day and place that Reuben made application his mother gave affidavit which stated: "I, Mary Walton ... on oath, declare that when my son Reuben Walton was about five years of age, he went to live with Hugh Wilson, with whom he lived until said Wilson died when my said son who is now in my presence, continued to live with the son of said Wilson, about three years, I think, when he left said Wilson on account of ill treatment, changed his name of Reuben Walton into that of John Thompson being my maiden name under which name he enlisted into the Army of the United States. Said Wilson had pursued my son which was the reason of his changing his name...At that time was greatly concerned for the welfare of my son and knew not what had become of him. In the spring of the year 1782, much to my surprise and joy, he came home from the Army, as I then ascertained and with furlough, under the name of John Thompson. I well remember the furlough as it accounted for our not being able to learn anything of him before in consequence of the change in his name. He remained at home but two days when he again left us for the Army. I further certify that my said son, Reuben Walton, who is now present, and John Thompson who bore the furlough aforesaid, are one and the same person. (Signed) Mary Walton."

An affidavit given by Enos Taylor emphasizes the fear of detection the boy was living under. He states that: "...sometime, in the month of March, 1780, a boy about fourteen years of age came to me and said his name was John Thompson who lived with me until the month of July after he went into the Army for three months by that name and returned and continued with me until the next month when he enlisted in the Continental Army for three years under the same name but before he enlisted for the three months I found out that his name was Reuben Walton and after he returned to me he resumed the name of Reuben Walton."

Reuben was too young to join the army, but he ran away from the Wilson home and enlisted. He served all through the War of the Revolution; New Hampshire State Papers, vol. 16, p. 842, states that Reuben Walton, Sr., and Reuben Walton, Jr., appeared before their recruiting officer in their home town where he enlisted in July, 1781. The enlistment paper states: "Pursuant to an act of the general assembly of the said State for raising Soldiers for three years, or during the war, we have raised Reuben Walton, and Thomas Scott is engaged in the Riggerment aforementioned for the town of Stoddard he engaged in the year 1777 During the War and ... Reuben Walton, Junior who is under his father, that is, under age, and is listed into the New Hampshire forces During the war and is engaged for no other town that we know of. He belonged to Stoddard before he Listed."

During the early history of Stoddard, few records were kept. Petitions of the people recorded in State Papers give dates and names of the signers, and from the minutes of the council meetings, we glean ideas of the town's development and of a way of life we know little of today.

Reuben Walton, Sr. signed his name 18 June 1776, to a petition soliciting aid from the General Court on "law breaking and disturbin' meetings." Another was concerned with town boundary lines and the taxes encumbered by them. His name was on the side of justice in the court case against Captain Oliver Parker when, by petition, the inhabitants of the town cleared his name from malice and falsehood.

The last record of Reuben Walton, Sr. in Stoddard was at a meeting held 4 Sep 1780 at the home of Harry Spalding when he was chosen as chairman of a surveying committee to locate the "stake at the center of town." Reuben nominated Richard Emerson to serve on the same committee. These records, fragmentary as they are, give us a glimpse of our progenitors in their daily activities--establishing the foundations of the towns they lived in--and more important, the foundation of the future United States. These meager records also furnish many items of importance, which otherwise would not be available.

Before 1800 the family moved to Gray, in what later became the state of Maine. Lapham's History of Gray, states that Reuben, with sons Benjamin, Artemas, and Simeon were among the first settlers of Gray. Sons Reuben, Jr. and Jonathan were not mentioned by Mr. Lapham, probably because they were married and living elsewhere. Reuben and Mary's next move was to Paris, a few miles north of Gray, in Oxford County. They were living in an upper room of their son Simeon's home when death came to the father. He was reading by the fireplace when he was seized with a sharp pain in his chest that threw him forward. Mary's screams brought Simeon, but Reuben died before help could be given.

In her declining years, Mary shared the homes of her children and was living with Reuben, Jr., in 'feble' health in Jul, 1818, when Reuben made his application for a pension.

Reuben is our 6th Great Grandfather Parents: Samuel WALTON III and Rebecca DAVIS.

Children were: Simeon WALTON, Reuben WALTON Jr..

bulletReuben WALTON Jr. was born in 1762. He died on 20 Mar 1825 in Rumford, Oxford Co., Maine.
Reuben Walton Jr., son of Reuben Walton Sr. and Mary Thompson, was born about 1765 at Amherst, New Hampshire. He married 30 May 1787 at Lyndborough, New Hampshire, Ruth Peabody, daughter of Capt. Isaac and Sarah (Wilkins) Peabody. The census for 1790 lists them at Lyndborough with a Son and two daughters who are identified in family records as Artemas, Sally, and Elizabeth. The birth of their next child, Ruth, 4 Sep 1791, may have been in Alstead where the census of 1800 lists them with two sons and five daughters.

After the Revolutionary War the British government offered large tracts of land in Ontario, Quebec, and Nova Scotia to Americans who would settle them. Many, including the Reuben Walton family, flocked there in great numbers. Susan remembered she was "thirteen years old when she moved."

Deacon John Smith and Job Tyler, Reuben's sons-in-law, had previously moved to Shipton, Quebec, and Reuben may have gone there to be near his children. For some reason he did nor remain long but crossed the border again and settled in Mexico, Maine, where his brothers were living. Mexico was a government grant known as Holmanstown and was incorporated in 1818.

Various officers were called school agents, sealers of leather, sealers of weights, sealers of lumber, hog reaver, field drive, etc., etc. Among those officials the names of Kimball, Putnam, Bacon, Walton, Card, Eastman, Hannaford, and other allied families, was like listening in on a big, friendly family in their business of building a town. In perusing their petitions, disputes, and arguments, one almost felt the growing pains of Mexico as it struggled toward adulthood.

Swift River, an affluent of the Androscoggin, rushes and tumbles through the valley where fertile forms bask peacefully in the sun along its banks. Surrounding this peaceful valley are hills covered with forests of fir, spruce, hemlock, ash, and maple in all of nature's primeval beauty.

The farm belonging to Reuben, Jr., was located one half mile south of the Roxbury-Mexico town boundary line on the west side of Swift River, and that Artemas had a farm adjoining on the south. Deacon John Smith had returned from Shipton and had located across the river on the east and directly under "Pine Hill." These men built substantial homes on their broad acres. The largest of these was Reuben's, mentioned in history as "Walton's Mansion." It had many rooms, the largest of which, in lieu of a village school, was used for that purpose. Reuben's nephew, Benjamin Walton, was said to have been the first schoolmaster.

Sylvester Smith, son of John and Rachel Walton Smith, wrote a book entitled Recollections of a Busy Life, in which he shares with us his delightful memories of his grandmother, Ruth Peabody. One day, with his little warm hand in hers, they were walking along near the river on their way to her house. As they trudged along the sky darkened, and black, rolling clouds swooped toward them. The sharp flashes of lightning followed by the crashing explosion of thunder terrified the child and he began to whimper. Stooping, she folded him in her arms, and with a whispered assurance that they were in God's care, she comforted him. They crossed the old rustic footbridge and, splashing through the rain and mud, they reached the haven of her home. As they stepped into the cozy room, they were welcomed by the appetizing aroma of food simmering on the embers in the fireplace. Dry clothing and a bowl of hot soup before the cheery fire soon erased the frightening experience from the little boy's mind, but the memory of his dear grandmother who trusted in the Lord, still lives.

The Andrascoggin River flows between the villages of Mexico and Rumford, Maine. Reuben's last home was built amidst the scenic beauty of the Rumford Falls, where the water plunges over the rocks in a foaming torrent. It was here that Reuben, in poor health, was living (with the eight dependents) when he applied for the pension. He said, "Pride would not allow me to apply for a pension as long as I was able to work." That simple, terse statement sums up the philosophy of an honest and self-respecting man. May his descendants appreciate the integrity of such a life; the values he cherished, and the standards he maintained.

Reuben is our 5th Great Grandfather Parents: Reuben WALTON Sr. and Mary THOMPSON.

He was married to Ruth PEABODY on 30 May 1787. Children were: Martha Ann WALTON.

bullet Samuel WALTON III was born on 7 Oct 1705 in Reading, Middlesex Co., Massachusetts. He died in 1749 in Amherst, Hillsborough Co., New Hampshire.
Samuel Walton III, son of Samuel Walton Jr. and Hannah Leach, was born in Reading, Massachusetts, 7 Oct 1705. There, on 6 Mar 1729, he married Rebecca Davis, daughter of Joshua and Rebecca (Pierce) Davis. The wedding vows were exchanged in a church ceremony with Rev. Daniel Putnam officiating. They settled in Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts, where their first two sons, Samuel and Davis, were born. The latter was just past two years old when an important event changed the course of the lives of this family.

It all came about through the governor of Massachusetts bestowing grants of land on the legal heirs, male and female, of soldiers who had fought in King Philip's War. These grants were in fulfillment of a proclamation made to soldiers on Dedham Plain in the name of the government that "if they played the man, took the fort and drove the enemy out of Narragansett, they should have a gratuity of land besides their wages.

Under that proclamation, Samuel's legal heirship came through his mother Hannah, the granddaughter of John Leach Sr., who was a soldier in that deadly struggle.

Imbued with confidence in the government, self reliance, and an abiding faith in God, Samuel and Rebecca left Lynn, risking all they held dear to face the uncertain future in a lonely unbroken wilderness.

The grant was called Narragansett No. 3, or Souhegan West, until it was incorporated as Amherst. About 1734, historians tell us that "Samuel Walton and Samuel Lamson who were brought up in Reading, moved their families to their allotment. The land, densely forested, through which the Souhegan River flows on its meandering way to join the Merrimac was rich and fertile. Put despite these advantages, it was lonely and unsettled. One settler described it as a "howling wilderness where no man dwelt. The hideous howling of wolves. the eerie shriek of Owls, the gobbling of wild turkeys and barking of foxes was all the music we heard. It was all a dreary waste and exposed to a thousand difficulties."

Two unrecorded and unsung heroines of history, the wives of Samuel Walton and Samuel Lamson, were there with their husbands when Amherst emerged from its primeval state. They with their children, helped to clear the land of trees, brush, and stumps to make it habitable. Their homes, historians tell us, were the first in Amherst. In a "Historical Sketch of Amherst," by Dr. John Farmer, we read that "The first settlement was commenced and the first house built by Samuel Walton and Samuel Lamson. It was built of logs and stood where the tavern now stands.

They lived in a rude log cabin far from neighbors, dependent on wild game and berries for their sustenance and medicinal plants for their ills. Abigail Lamson's daughter was said to have been the first white child born in Amherst, and Rebecca Walton's son Benjamin was born about 1773-4.

Dr. Farmer records that both families later moved to "other parts," Samuel Lamson to the west, now Mont Vernon, and Samuel Walton to the east near Baboosuck Pond. The reason for this scattering out and moving to "other parts" was that they now felt it unnecessary to live in the fort, due to the promise of the government that they would be protected from attacks by the Indians-a promise that never was kept.

A new realism grips us when we remember that another son, Reuben, was born in a log cabin near Baboosuck Pond, miles from the nearest neighbor, with the fear of Indian attacks ever present in their minds.

There is a feeling of pride in the hearts of American people stemming from the fact that, as the pioneers pushed outward, expanding the boundaries of the frontier, their first united effort was the building of schools and churches. In January, 1735, votes were cast to reserve three lots in the best location in the village for that purpose. Their minister, Rev. Daniel Wilkins, graduate of Harvard College, was selected in 1738. He lived in the fort called the "block-house," in the northeastern part of the village, where settlers gathered for safety and to discuss their mutual problems. He was their pastor and "under God" their counselor and protector, as well as their representative in the Governor's Council.

On that memorable day, 22 Sept 1741, the Congregational Church was organized in that community. Also present in the assembly were many ministers from neighboring villages. With solemnity, the Covenant was read, and Daniel Wilkins was ordained pastor of the church after which five men and six women, among them Abigail Lamson and Rebecca Walton, subscribed their names.

Their foreboding of an Indian attack was justified. In their anxiety, the settlers held a meeting in the block-house and unanimously agreed that Rev. Wilkins act as their representative before the legislature. They presented a memorial to the governor explaining their defenseless condition, the imminent threat of an Indian attack and their inability to raise their crops unless a suitable guard be sent to protect them as they worked in their fields. The petition read, in part: "Unless we have speedy help, we will soon be obliged to forsake our homes, yield ourselves as easy prey to our enemies and suffer ruin by leaving our farms and improvements to waste. This must be our lot unless the government compassionately grants us protection."

There were 35 families with only 58 men over 16 years of age in the village of Amherst. Of Samuel and Rebecca's large family, only one, Samuel, was in that group. Thus father and son were a part of that inadequate number for defense against potentially overwhelming odds.

In reading the petitions to the governor and the minutes of the town meetings we discover ample evidence of the continued growth of the village of Amherst. The land was divided and surveyed; river water was impounded and Amherst, so recently a wilderness, was preparing to take its rightful place in the thriving colony of Massachusetts.

Being a surveyor, Samuel was one of a committee in 1745, instructed to "lay out roads and highways, and to lay out no highways except where the people were willing to donate the land for the purpose." Two years later he was one of a committee instructed to survey the public lands as follows: "To survey the undivided land, and to have regard for (to take note of) the quality and goodness of the land and meadows and qualify the same; to get such assistance as needful and get the work done as soon as possible." The work was accomplished with all speed and the committee's report was submitted to the meeting of the proprietors held 8 Feb 1748-49. That was the last time Samuel's name appears on any official records. The assignment of these public duties are an indication of the capability of the man, the trustworthiness and dependability of his character and his great interest in the progress of the community.

The inventory of his estate reveals a way of life far removed from our modern times. The names of the tools are unrecognizable to the present generation. Listed were a pair of oxen and two mares, a heifer and two white-backed cows and calves; coopers tools, chisels, saws and grindstone; a gun and pistol, scythe and andirons; tongs, bake oven, mortar and cement mixer; wooden bowls, tubs, dishes, knives and forks; a Negro servant girl, a spinning wheel, chests and pillows-and something very rare--a library of 75 books. Real property included 315 acres of land with house and barn on it-a very substantial home in those days--which was appraised at 3,026 (English) pounds

Samuel's earthly journey was of short duration but his sons give it meaning and purpose. The spinning wheel and books, which were probably inherited from his father, suggest contented domesticity and culture in the home. The administration of his estate shows that his death and burial occurred some time before 16 Feb 1750, for on that date his widow waived administration of the estate in favor of her son Samuel, Jr. as expressed in the following letter written by her to the Judge of Probate:

Souhegan West, New Hampshire

"To the Honorable Andrew Wiggin, Esq. Judge of Probate for the Wills of N.H.

This humble petition showeth that I, the subscriber, relict of Samuel Walton, deceased, being of weakly constitution and not so able to have the fatigue of the journey and also having a numerous family of small children who are in no way fit to be left alone too long and also there being large sums of money to call in and pay out, which require much more trouble than the circumstances of my person and family will admit. I desire, therefore, that your honor would excuse me from taking administration of my husband's estate, (which is in testate) and accept my son Samuel Walton in my room. In so doing, your Honor will greatly oblige his very humble servant.
(signed) Rebecca Walton"

(New Hamp. Probate, vol. 16, p. 150)

Three days later Samuel, Jr., Ebenezer Lyons, and Ebenezer Ellingwood gave a bond for the administration of the estate. On 29 May 1751, Rebecca, her father-in-law, Samuel Walton, the miller, of Hampton Falls, and her son Samuel Jr., gave a surety bond for 1000 (English) pounds for the guardianship of her smaller children.

Of these sons, Samuel Jr., the eldest, and Benjamin, died before 1760. Proof of this statement is that on 13 May 1760 the estate of Benjamin was administered by John Harvell of Litchfield, and since Benjamin was an heir to the estate of his brother Samuel Jr., it is evident that he survived the latter.

The tragedy of the deaths of two of her eldest sons left Rebecca without help with the farm and the younger children. She married her second husband, Mr. Perham, before 18 Dec 1755, the day her dowry was legally given as Rebecca Walton (alias) Perham.

The military service of all her remaining sons and two grandsons in the Revolutionary War distinguishes her as one of America's great mothers. At the close of the war, five of these sons went to Maine. Before leaving, however, they signed a deed, turning the Amherst property they inherited from their parents and two deceased brothers, over to their brother William.

Samuel is our 7th Great Grandfather Parents: Samuel WALTON Jr. and Hannah Mary LEACH.

He was married to Rebecca DAVIS on 6 Mar 1729 in Reading, Middlesex Co., Massachusetts. Children were: Reuben WALTON Sr., Joshua WALTON, Moses WALTON, William WALTON, Davis WALTON, Benjamin WALTON.

bullet Simeon WALTON was born on 29 May 1779 in Stoddard, Cheshire Co., New Hampshire. He died on 9 Mar 1862 in Paris, Oxford Co., Maine.
Simeon Walton, youngest son of Reuben Walton Sr. and Mary Thompson, was born in Stoddard, New Hampshire on the 29th of May, 1779. About 1790 he moved with his parents to Gray, Cumberland County (now Maine) while it was still a part of New Hampshire. The sturdy fort in the middle of the clearing, with smoke lazily spiraling from its broad chimneys, must have been a welcome and reassuring sight to the travelers as they drew the weary oxen to a halt at the end of the tedious journey.

It is not recorded how long the family remained in this area, but in the first land survey Simeon and his brother Benjamin owned a house and land in Plantation No. 4, which later was laid out as the village of Paris, and eventually became the seat of Oxford County.

All references to Simeon in this sketch are from History of Paris, by Lapham and Maxwell.

New Gloucester, a town a few miles north of Gray, was the home of an interesting personality: Simeon, the jeweler of Paris Hill. On 13 Apr 1800, in a ceremony at the home of the bride's parents, he married Margaret, daughter of Robert Bartoll and Martha (Tucker) Hannaford. This event was recorded at Paris with attestations given by Abija Hall, town clerk.

Simeon was a civic-minded man who voted for the division of the town when boundary lines, roads, schoolhouses, and places of worship were everybody's business. Among the new town officers, he was chosen Selectman in 1810. A jeweler and clockmaker by trade he specialized in the "grandfather" type so popular at that time. A few of these lovely old timepieces still survive and lend charm and dignity to well-furnished homes. About 1811, he established a branch business in the village of Norway. In the history of that area, he is spoken of as "the well-known jeweler of Paris Hill and Norway Village." In Norway, the shop was in an upper room of the Hathaway Building. In Paris, it was across the street from the family residence of Governor Albion E. Parris.

In a letter written in 1849 by Percival J. Parris, replying to an inquiry about Simeon, he said, "As a boy, I was more interested in early apples, squirrels and snow forts than in heredity, but I do remember Mr. Walton as a kindly old gentleman with glasses who rang our curfew. Standing in front of his shop was a large clock as a business advertisement.

The census of Norway for 1850 lists two house numbers for Simeon. C.B. Coffin, whose age is given as 25, worked in the shop and may have been an apprentice. Samuel Richards served an apprenticeship of three years under Simeon's expert direction. When it was completed, he received the highest honors of the Optical College and became the finest watchmaker in Oxford County.

David Hannaford, Simeon's brother-in-law who had only one hand, was referred to as "the clock peddler for Simeon Walton."

When the War of 1812 broke out, Simeon enlisted at Portland. In 1814 he served with the Massachusetts troops under Captain Blake and Colonel Ryerson. During that year a daughter, whose name is not known, was born.

A report from the National Archives and Record Service shows that bounty land was issued to him under the Acts of 28 Sep and 3 Mar 1855, part of which he received at age 72 while living in the village of Norway. Another purchase of a lot is recorded in Paris Deeds and on 4 Apr 1837 Margaret signed with him on a deed to John Dean.

In addition to his jewelry and clockmaking business Simeon was also a farmer and struggled with adverse weather conditions. His sheep mark was a swallowtail in the right ear. In 1816 snow fell every month of the year. On 7 Jun his neighbor rode horseback to the next town and reported, "I came very near freezing to death. It was so cold it killed the birds. English sparrows, frozen stiff, were picked up along the road." Taxes were high that year and in 1817 corn sold for 2.00 a bushel, wheat for 2.50 and 3.00.

Simeon's public service as Oxford County Clerk began when he took the oath of office on 20 Aug 1833, the day the first issue of the Oxford Democrat came off the press. He served three years in this office and his handwriting, still legible, is preserved in the records he kept.

He was dedicated to the cause of temperance, and a charter member of the first Union Temperance Society of Maine, whose constitution pledged its members to total abstinence. He campaigned for greater and stronger membership in the society, and in 1851, after 18 years of perseverance, saw the adoption of a prohibitory liquor law written into the constitution of the state.

Simeon gave his full support to the purchase of a curfew bell which had been discussed in council meetings. It proved a good investment as it was also used to proclaim the opening of all sessions of the County Court and as a call to worship on the Sabbath Day.

In later life Simeon was chosen sexton of the church and his ringing of the melodious bell through the years, so exact in time, endeared him to the hearts of the people. "He was old, honest, experienced, and very exact in ringing the bell."

The First Baptist Church, which was built in 1803 is still in use. Simeon's name and family pew are still on record there. The first town hall is now a museum, jealously guarding the treasured relics of a forgotten age.

In those early days people helped each other in house or barn raisings, in what was known as a "bee." There were quilting bees, husking bees, and many others that afforded good food, fun, and entertainment, as well as work. But the "piling bees" were different and provided an exciting means of getting a job done. When a neighbor had 10 or 20 acres cleared, a piling bee was called, and families gathered for the fun. Men and boys laid the trees and brush in long rows and put torches to them. After the first burning, the remainder of the charred logs were pushed into piles for a second burning. The grotesque, smoke-blackened faces of the burners created much merriment for all. The dinner bell was a welcome sound, and laughter filled the air as the hungry pilers filed into the kitchen with its tantalizing aroma of delicious food and the happy chatter of their womenfolk.

After Margaret's death on 10 Oct 1850, Simeon married again, but the date is not found. Percival J. Parris writes of this event: "Very late in life, Mr. Walton married Sally, widow of Abijah Andrews. I well remember that because the couple was given a serenade of even greater noise and disorder than usually deemed appropriate at the time. My father spoke in disapproval of it, but I was at an age when harsh and discordant noises were considered the sweetest music!"

An honorable citation of "Dean of Disciples" was awarded posthumously to Simeon by the governor of Maine at the Centennial Celebration of Paris in 1879, some 18 years after his death on 9 Mar 1862.

Simeon is our 5th Great Grandfather Parents: Reuben WALTON Sr. and Mary THOMPSON.

He was married to Margaret HANNAFORD on 13 Apr 1800 in Paris, Oxford Co., Maine. Children were: Arthur WALTON.

bullet William WALTON was born on 27 Apr 1743 in Amherst, Hillsborough Co., New Hampshire. He died on 15 Apr 1823 in Fayette, Kennebec Co., Maine. Parents: Samuel WALTON III and Rebecca DAVIS.

bullet William Alphonso WALTON was born on 9 Oct 1859 in Bountiful, Davis Co., Utah. He died on 13 Jan 1933. Parents: William Harrison WALTON and Frances Newell TAYLOR.

He was married to Clara Anna Laura PUTNAM on 22 Dec 1880 in Woodruff, Rich Co., Utah.

bullet William Charles WALTON was born on 21 Apr 1904. He died on 26 Apr 1987 in Mesa, Maricopa Co., Arizona. Parents: Charles Eugene WALTON Jr. and Emma Louise HYDE.

He was married to Thelma GEORGE on 29 Aug 1941 in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake Co., Utah.

bullet William Harrison WALTON (photo) was born on 9 May 1823 in Mexico, Oxford Co., Maine. He died on 9 Oct 1907 in Auburn, Lincoln Co., Wyoming.
William Harrison Walton, son of Arthur and Martha Walton (his cousin) was born 9 May 1823 at Mexico, Maine, and there married 10 Jun 1843 Frances Newell Taylor, daughter of George Washington and Abigail Bacon Taylor.

'Harry,' as he was called, with his young wife, joined the caravan on the westward trek with the rest of the Walton family. The company divided at Rock Island, Illinois, and Harry, his cousin Sylvester Smith and Levi Wheeler, with their wives, drove back to Pawpaw Grove, Lee County, Illinois, about 75 miles west of Chicago. Harry's father, Arthur, and the rest of the family joined the Saints who had fled from Nauvoo, at the border of Montrose, Iowa where they spent the next five years.

At Pawpaw Grove haying was well under way and they found work in the hayfields and and in fencing the stacks. Land was acquired by preemption and Sylvester recorded in his Recollections of a Busy Life as follows:

"Settlers cooperated in fencing big fields of their crops. Each owner shared pro rata in the use of the land in proportion to the number of rails he had furnished for the fence. They protected their fields from fire by plowing a series of furrows around them some distance apart.

"One day in October, 1846, we were returning from the field with our wagons loaded with corn when, to our horror, we saw a huge prairie fire driven by a high wind advancing upon us from the west! We hurriedly corralled our teams and set counter fires to the dry grass beyond the plowed fire guard, but that west wind was against us and soon fire met fire and ours was telescoped by the raging holocaust which left nearly all our belongings a blackened mass of cinders.

"Our daily diet of parched corn became very monotonous and we were grateful for an occasional prairie hen which we killed with a stone.

"Grinding corn in a coffee mill, baking flapjacks on a campfire grill and living in a tent or covered wagon was an experience Frances had never known. Later she came close to death during the birth of her first baby, Harrison. Their second son, Charles Eugene, was born the 24th of August, 1847."

The following spring, the Smith and Harry Walton families parted at the Grove and Sylvester says that they sold their household effects and made their oxen and wagons ready for the trip. His brother-in-law, Levi E. Wheeler and Sylvester and his small family bade farewell to their neighbors and friends and left on the fifth of April, 1848.

Harry may have left about that time also, as the next heard of him is in California. He probably left Frances and the children at Montrose with his parents.

San Bernardino was a station on the old Santa Fe Trail, and Salt Lake merchants had much of their freight brought by ship to Los Angeles from whence it was transported in heavy wagons to San Bernardino and thence to its destination in the Salt Lake Valley, a distance of about 700 miles. The long and tedious overland trip was fraught with ever present dangers of Indian attacks, thirst, and starvation.

With the passing of the years, it has been forgotten whether Harry's duty was serving as guard in that starvation camp, protecting the United States mail, or keeping a watchful eye on the Utah freight. It would seem that it might have been all three as in another account it mentions him as 'traversing the United States from coast to coast, while on duty as a United States guard.' However, this experience took place before 17 May 1851, because on that important date he was back in Garden Grove, about 140 miles from Montrose where he had left Frances and the children.

His homecoming from halfway across the continent was a joyous one and was the occasion for a family reunion long to be remembered. Many of the travelers who had left the east with the caravan on their way west to the Rocky Mountains or the Pacific Coast were living in Garden Grove. Among them was the Zimmerman family. One of the daughters, Susan, relates in her journal:

"We formed ourselves into an organization and chose Harry Walton to be our captain. He had been to California and had returned to get his family. Although he was not a Mormon, we chose him because he knew the trail and would make a good leader. Twenty-one families, sixty wagons and a threshing machine were in the company. When we left Winter Quarters the water was high and we had to take a long detour to go around the Elkhorn River. Several companies were traveling the same raute. Buffalo were so numerous that we had plenty of meat and plenty of trouble with stampedes. Several terrifying ones occurred in the darkness of the night and one in the daytime.

"We passed Father Allred's company when they stopped to bury a women who had been killed in the stampede. Two days later, they passed our company when we paused to bury Ellen Kingsley (or Kingston), a young mother with a small baby. Her sister, who was her only relative, was among the company. In her fright during the stampede, Ellen had jumped from the back of the wagon into the path of the oncoming team and was killed instantly. Others might have met the same terrible fate, and more teams (gotten) out of control, had not Frank Olson and his sister Emeline had the presence of mind to leap from their wagon and throw a quilt over the heads of their oxen. Fortunately the team ahead was a span of blind horses and the running was checked."

On leaving the Platte River, the caravan traveled many miles to the northeast, to reach the head of the Elkhorn River in an effort to avoid the treacherous quicksand and dangerous crossings. The strain of travel was somewhat eased when Captain Walton's company finally returned to the Platte River where they met Captain John Brown, agent for the Perpetual Emigration Company, who had come east to conduct a party of emigrants to Utah. From that point they traveled together.

Mrs. Susan Z. Terry wrote: "Captain Brown always stopped and held meeting on Sundays. Our captain, not being a Mormon, generally passed them then but stopped later on where there were trees to rest beneath and water to wash our clothing and soak the wagon wheels. At these times, Captain Brown would pass us. We stopped at the death and burial of Sister William Thompson, who was the mother of four sons, Charles, George, Stephen and Harry." The next experience that saddened their hearts was the death of six-month-old George Ossian, son of Captain Harry Walton and his wife Frances, who died 18 Jun 1851. In sorrow, they left the little grave on the windswept prairie.

"Two days had the train been waiting,
Laid off from the forward tramp,
When the sick child drooped
And died, and they scooped
Out a little grave near camp.

Outside of civilization,
Far from the abode of men,
Where the cactus blows
And the wild sage grows
In the haunts of the wild sage hen,

No trace in the range of vision,
No beautiful flowers bloom,
But a waste of sand
In a dreary land
Surrounds the little tomb."

-John Kaye

Years after Frances' death, the following poignant poem was found in the Bible that she carried across the plains:

"We loved them, yes, we loved them
But Angels loved them more,
And they have gently called them
To yonder shining shore.

The golden gates are opened,
A gentle voice said, 'Come,
And with farewells unspoken,
They calmly entered home."

The threshing machine brought with the Garden Grove Company, was an added responsibility to Captain Harry's duties. Having traveled the road before, he was familiar with the swift flowing rivers, the hot, dry wind that weathered the wooden frame as the sand rolled up over the wheels, and dust that sifted into its every crevice. He knew the dangers of the deep canyons ahead as they neared the Salt Lake Valley. The journey took two months longer than anticipated, and the actual arrival, though historically significant, was far from spectacular. The machine was taken to Mr. Silver's repair shop at Sessions where it was thoroughly overhauled and made ready for the imminent fall threshing. Harry was a carpenter and his first responsibility was the building of a home and a machine shop. Iron was needed for the manufacture of more machines and freighting between Chicago, Omaha, and Salt Lake City was big business, and contributed greatly to the rapid growth and development of the city, and, in fact the whole of Utah Territory. In all Harry made five trips across the plains-one with oxen, and the others with mules.

His son George relates: "Father had eight to ten span of mules hitched to each outfit, which consisted of three, and sometimes four, heavy wagons chained together."

Harry, his eldest son Charles Eugene, and his cousin Charles Card, made the long and hazardous trips together. One of the worst experiences occurred when the two boys made the trip alone. On their way home Charles became ill somewhere east of Evanston, Wyoming and died on the plains. He was buried at Evanston. He was the son of Alonzo and Rosannah (Walton) (Virgin) Card.

In less than four months after their arrival Harry and Frances Walton became members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in substantiation of which a patriarchal blessing is recorded as having been given on 29 January 1852.

In Harry's military record, Harry's name appears on an honor roll of teamsters who, at their own expense, furnished their own horses and all equipment necessary for their service--something otherwise unknown in the history of the Civil War. He served under Major Lot Smith, who was in command of the Utah Volunteers who answered the call of President Lincoln 30 April 1862. "Many were the hardships endured on that memorable campaign."

Harry also served as captain of Company B, First Infantry, under General Daniel H. Wells when they frustrated the plans of Johnston's Army for the 'extermination' of the Saints.

On 18 Feb 1857 the city of Bountiful, a few miles north of Salt Lake City, celebrated the ground-breaking for the erection of a Latter-day Saint tabernacle. Platoons of joyous merrymakers, preceded by flag bearer and drum major representing various organizations of wards and stakes, led the parade.

Amid waving banners, with Captain Harry Walton in the lead, the Corps of Mounted Riflemen came smartly down the street to the accompaniment of the rhythmic 'boom, boom, boom' of the drums in the brass band. The day of rejoicing and celebration ended with an outdoor picnic. That historic building, erected 112 years ago, still stands. With later improvements, including the landscaping of the full city block, it stands as a suitable monument to the enduring workmanship of those pioneer builders.

In obedience to the law of plural marriage which Harry believed to be right, he married as his plural wife, an attractive English girl named Mary Ann Lovelace. She was familiarly known as Mary Ann Briggs because she was brought up by her aunt, Susannah Vine Preston (later Briggs), with whom she came to the United States. They were passengers on the ship Siddons which sailed from Liverpool 27 February 1855. Shipping records show Susannah Preston's age as 57, from 117 Clawson Street; Mary Ann Lovelace, age 15.

They crossed the plains in Captain Richard Ballentine's emigration company that reached Salt Lake City 25 September 1855. The arrival of 402 immigrants with ox-teams, horses, cattle, and much equipment, was a spectacular sight and made headlines in the Deseret News on that day. The brass band, under the capable leadership of William Pitt, met the caravan at Willow Springs and with lively music escorted them as they jolted down the dusty city streets to Union Square. There they were given a hearty welcome by Brigham Young, president of the Church and former governor of Utah Territory. Other Church officials were to greet them, as well as many friends who had preceded them to Zion.

Two years later, 8 January 1857, Harry and Mary Ann were sealed in eternal marriage in the office of President Brigham Young. The marriage was witnessed by Joseph Young. Mary Ann's birth date was recorded as 15 November 1840, and the place of birth as Shelford, London, England.

Their daughter, Adelaide Augusta, who was born in Bountiful in 1857 died two years later. Family letters of that time reveal that Susannah Vine Preston (now Briggs) was going to Denver, Colorado. Mary left Harry and accompanied her aunt. Sometime later she married Charles Helm of that city or of Silverton, Colorado. She died in Kansas City where her son and two daughters were living.

On 15 February 1862 Harry married Sarah Elizabeth, daughter of James and Judith (Edgerton) Harrison of Wolverton, Hampshire, England. She sailed on the ship Manchester with her mother and stepfather, Richard Warwick. Among her brothers and sisters who also came was Thomas, who wrote about their trip to Utah by train, ox-team, and on foot. Some years after this, Harry and his family moved to Woodruff, Utah when the road was little more than a buffalo trail. In a letter written by his daughter Martha Vail, she said:

"When I was three years and eight months old, we moved to Woodruff, Utah. Father drove two span of mules-a little pair of brown ones and a pair of mismatched grays, one little and one big. One of them got his shoe caught in under the rail in crossing the railroad track. Your Uncle Fon (William Alphonso) pulled the shoe off and we just got across the track when the train came along there at Devil's Gate. The road is moved now from where it was then."

Devil's Gate is a narrow passage in Weber Canyon where it was very difficult for the pioneers to get through. The original main track of the Union Pacific was constructed through Morgan County in 1869, and the second main track in 1926.

The first home of the Harry Walton family in Woodruff, Martha describes as one room with a thatch roof and straw floor. She says:

"We lived in Woodruff for 17 years when we moved to Star Valley in Wyoming. While we lived in Bountiful, Father and his brothers built threshing machines for which Mother wove the riddles or coarse sieves which separated the grain from the chaff. One day she injured her finger which caused a bad felon. Later a piece of bone worked out and left a big crease in the end of her finger."

Martha had tender memories of her mother, who, with Harry, outlived eight of their children. One son, Parley Leroy, was accidentally shot soon after his return from serving a mission for the Church.

Those who were acquainted with Harry's first wife, Frances, knew her as a friendly, refined woman. Their views on plural marriage became inharmonious and she severed their marriage relations.

Frances wore her long brown hair parted in the middle, upswept, coiled in a bun and crowned with a beautiful, jeweled, fan-shaped comb. Only close friends ever suspected that the elegant coiffure lay on the dresser at night. Her beautiful, long, white aprons were crisp and immaculate.

Before Harry moved from Bountiful he received a letter from Box B, the office of Brigham Young. He held it thoughtfully in his hand. The special message proved to be a call to serve in the Eastern States Mission, which he accepted with all his heart. He was among eight thousand Saints who sat in General Conference in the new tabernacle on 8 October 1869, waiting to hear Brigham Young's opening address. The minutes of that meeting record that the invocation was given by Wilford Woodruff, following which George Q. Cannon announced the missionary calls. Harry's name was among those called to serve. The choir's rendition of "How Beautiful Upon the Mountain" filled his heart with peace and invited his soul to prayer. He was ready to go. Two days later he received a blessing under the hands of Orson Pratt. Through the years he bore testimony of his joy in that mission.

Harry and his sons were pioneer cattlemen and ranchers. Their homes being adjacent allowed for family gatherings on various holidays, at which Frances and her second husband were usually honored guests. In his generous heart Harry never blamed Frances, the woman he had always loved, for their separation.

Years later when Frances lived in Logan, she was cared for by her granddaughter Effie Darley, and during her last illness she was tenderly watched over by her son Joseph's wife, Annie. Her death occurred on 5 August 1912, and her burial took place on the ninth.

Harry never knew a sick day in his life until three weeks before his death with Annie at his bedside. She listened to his last words which told of his love for Frances. "She will come back to me," he said, and peacefully fell asleep. He died 3 Oct 1907 and was buried in the Auburn Cemetery beside his wife Sara Elizabeth.

Harry is our Third Great Grandfather Parents: Arthur WALTON and Martha Ann WALTON.

He was married to Frances Newell TAYLOR on 10 Jun 1843 in Mexico, Oxford Co., Maine. Children were: Charles Eugene WALTON Sr., Harrison A. WALTON, John WALTON, George Ossian WALTON, Arthur E. WALTON, Albert V. WALTON, Frances Adeline WALTON, William Alphonso WALTON, George Washington WALTON , Joseph Henry WALTON, Alvin A. WALTON.

He was married to Sarah Elizabeth HARRISON on 15 Feb 1862. Children were: Adelaide WALTON, Sarah Helen WALTON, Jane Harrison WALTON, Martha Ann WALTON, Eva Leone WALTON, William David WALTON, John Harrison WALTON, Robert Clarence WALTON, Minnie Elizabeth WALTON, Rosella Jane WALTON, Parley Leroy WALTON, Silas Ray WALTON.

He was married to Mary Ann LOVELESS on 8 Jan 1857 in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake Co., Utah.

bullet Ann WARD was born on 4 Oct 1792 in Lestershire, England.

Children were: Thomas HICKEN.

bulletElizabeth WARREN.

Children were: Reuben Warren ALLRED .

bulletSarah WILKINS was born on 17 Dec 1731 in Middleton, Strafford Co., New Hampshire. Parents: Timothy WILKINS and Ann SMITH.

She was married to Isaac PEABODY on 8 Mar 1749. Children were: Ruth PEABODY, Molly PEABODY, Sarah PEABODY, Isaac PEABODY, John PEABODY, Huldah PEABODY, Rachel PEABODY, Moses PEABODY, Lucy PEABODY, Ruth PEABODY.

bullet Timothy WILKINS was born in Jun 1709. He died in Carlisle, Middlesex Co., Massachusetts.
Timothy Wilkins bought land in Massachusetts in 1737 which he later sold to his sons and in 1764 moved to Hillsborough, New Hampshire where he became a prominent citizen. He was one of the incorporators of the town and one of the signers of the Association Test Papers in 1776. He also served for some time as town treasurer. When a church was to be built, he donated a fine piece of land in the center of Carlisle for the site of the edifice. They had six children, four of whom were born in Middleton. Their eldest daughter Sarah married Isaac Peabody. After the death of her husband, Ann married Deacon Parmenter of Antrum, New Hampshire.

Timothy is our 7th Great Grandfather Parents: Isaac WILKINS and Susannah WILKINS.

Children were: Sarah WILKINS.

bulletAnne Kirstene Hansen WITH was born on 16 Apr 1796 in Rodby, Maribo, Denmark. She died on 1 Oct 1837 in Rodby, Maribo, Denmark. Parents: Hans Jacobsen WITH and Christiane PEDERSEN.

She was married to Erik Mackeprang KRUCKOW on 20 May 1814. Children were: Anne Kirstine MACKELPRANG , Peder Mathiasen MACKELPRANG, Christian MACKELPRANG.

bullet Hans Jacobsen WITH was born on 28 Aug 1768 in Rodby, Maribo, Denmark. He died on 23 Aug 1849 in Rodby, Maribo, Denmark. Parents: Jacob TOMMESEN and Anna JORGENSEN.

He was married to Birthe HENRIKSEN on 9 Nov 1822 in Rodby, Maribo, Denmark.

He was married to Christiane PEDERSEN on 2 Nov 1792 in Rodby, Maribo, Denmark. Children were: Jacob Hansen WITH, Anne Kirstene Hansen WITH, Karen Hansen WITH, Peder Hansen WITH, Lars Hagen Hansen WITH, Jorgen Hansen WITH.

bullet Jacob Hansen WITH was born on 6 Aug 1793 in Rodby, Maribo, Denmark. He died on 11 Mar 1854 in Rodby, Maribo, Denmark. Parents: Hans Jacobsen WITH and Christiane PEDERSEN.

He was married to Mariana MATHIASEN in Denmark.

bullet Jorgen Hansen WITH was born on 30 Nov 1811 in Rodby, Maribo, Denmark. He died on 16 Oct 1875. Parents: Hans Jacobsen WITH and Christiane PEDERSEN.

He was married to Louise JOHANSEN on 24 Nov 1843 in Rodby, Maribo, Denmark.

He was married to Juliane Margrethe KOEFORD in Denmark.

bullet Karen Hansen WITH was born on 29 Sep 1801 in Rodby, Maribo, Denmark. She died on 7 Feb 1877. Parents: Hans Jacobsen WITH and Christiane PEDERSEN.

She was married to Christian CHRISTIANSEN on 16 May 1834 in Rodby, Maribo, Denmark.

bullet Karen Jacobsen WITH was born on 24 Jun 1764 in Rodby, Maribo, Denmark. She died in 1771. Parents: Jacob TOMMESEN and Anna JORGENSEN.

bullet Lars Hagen Hansen WITH was born on 15 Apr 1809 in Rodby, Maribo, Denmark. He died on 16 Dec 1881 in Rodby, Maribo, Denmark. Parents: Hans Jacobsen WITH and Christiane PEDERSEN.

He was married to Mariane HANSEN on 3 Nov 1837 in Rodby, Maribo, Denmark.

bullet Peder Hansen WITH was born on 29 Apr 1806 in Rodby, Maribo, Denmark. He died on 18 Dec 1831 in Rodby, Maribo, Denmark. Parents: Hans Jacobsen WITH and Christiane PEDERSEN.

He was married to Petronelle HANSEN on 6 May 1831 in Rodby, Maribo, Denmark.

bullet Tommes Jacobsen WITH was born about 1762 in Rodby, Maribo, Denmark. He died on 3 Sep 1801 in Rodby, Maribo, Denmark. Parents: Jacob TOMMESEN and Anna JORGENSEN.

He was married to Karen LARSEN on 4 Jun 1783 in Rodby, Maribo, Denmark.

bullet Susanna WYCKE was born about 1736 in North Crawley, Buckinghamshire, England.

She was married to Thomas READ on 5 Sep 1757 in North Crawley, Buckinghamshire, England. Children were: William READ, Susanna READ, Francis READ, Thomas READ, Ann READ, Mary READ, George READ, Sara READ, Edward READ, Mary READ, Elizabeth READ.

bullet Christian YODER

He was married to Sarah HOCHSTETLER in 1850 in Somerset Co., Pennsylvania.

bullet David YODER

He was married to Catherine HOCHSTETLER on 15 Jun 1843 in Somerset Co., Pennsylvania.

bullet Elias YODER

He was married to Susanna HOCHSTETLER on 8 Feb 1886 in Meyersdale, Somerset Co., Pennsylvania.

bullet Frany YODER

bulletHenry YODER.

He was married to Gertrude HOCHSTETLER [twin] in 1849 in Somerset Co., Pennsylvania.

bullet Jacob YODER

bulletMagdalena YODER.

She was married to Johannes GNAEGI about 1747 in Pennsylvania.

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