When town’s Saints
WE have told previously of the establishment of Southport’s Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and the construction of the town’s very own church building.
Here we reveal the families who all in good faith, traversed harsh environments across 1,300 miles to reach their promised land, their ‘Zion.’
No matter what your religion, or religious beliefs, they should be praised and even saluted for their bravery and perseverance.
Those brave, noble pioneers made the treacherous journey to Salt Lake from the mid-1840s and from other times and places, to these hallowed western valleys, in the name of faith and a new life.
It was certainly no mean feat what thousands of pioneers achieved – although during the period 1856 to 1860 (even into the 1880s), some 3,000 emigrants from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints joining numerous handcart companies to trek to Utah from places such as Iowa City (a distance of some 1,300 miles).
Sadly, over 250 noble souls perished along the way, Southport people included.
Such life-changing pilgrimages were made by a large number of Southport residents, especially in the 1850s and 1860s; the precise number has yet to be established but we have discovered three dozen so far, having only touched the tip of the iceberg.
Each individual or family have their story to tell, but all too often these are heartbreaking accounts, amidst what historians described as ‘the most remarkable travel experiment in the history of Western America’.
These were brave individuals and families who, after being shipped across to America (a nightmare journey itself ), then amazingly pulled their belongings in handcarts (or if they could afford luxury, a horse or oxen-led wagon) right across the mid-west, through all kinds of weather, hardship and dangers, to settle in Salt Lake City and its surrounding areas.
These ‘saints’ included many Southport residents who travelled by steam locomotive to Liverpool, and then from there by either a sailing or steam-driven ship to New York, Boston or Philadelphia, before taking on the arduous trek.
One account of a Southport family, who undertook the massive American challenge to strive for a new life, is picked out purely alphabetically. It begins with two young brothers Christopher and John Alston who, in 1864 – just over a century before the Southport church was built – crossed ‘the pond’ and then the hostile American plains to get to their destination.
The voyage and arrival account to Salt Lake, by ten-year old Christopher and eight-year old John – who travelled with their custodian, family friend John Ollerton (33), is an interesting story that has its moving moments – although not as heartrendering as many others.
Born in Southport, September 3 1853, the eldest of five children to James and Ann Alston (nee Molyneux), Christopher Alston was baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when he was eight years old by John Alexander in 1861.
Christopher’s father, James, sadly died two years later, on May 26, 1863, leaving his wife and five young children, Christopher being the eldest (10).
His mother (Ann née Molneaux), living at 4 Back Lord Street (but brought up in Snuttering Lane and later East Bank Street) was a staunch member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and desired ‘to gather to the place appointed for members of the Church’ – to assemble, settle, and to make family homes and build up a community in Salt Lake City, and the adjacent countryside.
However, Christopher’s grandmother (Margery Walne) and some of his uncles (despite being executors of James Alston’s will), were very strongly opposed to the young children being taken away ‘to that wicked place’ where those ‘awful Mormons’ lived, and threatened to disown them if they did.
Margery, strangely enough, was to later move to Preston – the heart of Lancashire Mormonism!
Christopher’s mother therefore needed to make a private arrangement, so she sent Christopher and his eight-year old brother John to a family friend, paying him a part of the emigration costs for caring for the two young brothers on the journey.
The friend who became custodian of the two young brothers was 33-year John Dandy Ollerton (not Hallerton as recorded in the ship’s register), a labourer by trade.
Born in Eccleston, Lancashire, in 1831, he was the son of John (born in Croston) and Alice (nee Dandy).
It was fairly common for families to travel in different groups as finances allowed.
The cost of sailing across was very expensive, so it was rare that whole families could go across all at once.
Christopher’s Southport-born mother, now widowed, Anne Alston nee Molyneux), for example, travelled there the following year (1865) with her other three young children – Thomas, Elizabeth and Margery; her sister, Margaret, also born in the town, was already in Utah, having moved there sometime before 1857, so she presumably converted first.
To assist folk like the Alstons the Mormon Church, utilised money from the Perpetual Emigration Fund andestablished handcart companies, each of which would be accompanied by a small group of wagons with oxen to carry heavier items.
Many Southport families took advantage of this, linking surnames including Aspey, Barton, Carr, Dickenson, Howard, Jackson, McBride, Molineaux and Watmough amongst others, residents from Upper King Street, Trap Lane and Tulketh Street, to name just a few.
Once in Salt Lake, Christopher’s mother remarried, to John Israel Pyre, and they had three children together; she died in November 1899 aged 70.
The three males emigrated by sailing on May 21, 1864 on the General McClellan, a 1,800 ton ship, under a Captain Trask, a chartered vessel with 861 people on board, 802 of them fellow ‘Saints.’
The two young boys were amongst these strangers in an unknown environment about to undertake an incredible journey to a huge foreign land. However, also aboard what young Alston described as a ‘good ship on this memorable trip’ was Sister Eliza Allen (mother of their neighbour, Mrs. John A. Pressler) who, according to his later memory, was ‘a fine example of young English girlhood’.
The ticket for the three of them came to £19 (the equivalent of £2,430 in today’s money). His mother has paid the £13.10s. deposit, and they paid the rest, £5.10s. in cash.
The trio of adventurous males were out on the Atlantic Ocean before Christopher’s grandmother and uncles knew they had been ‘quietly sent away to the United States of America – during the Civil War’ - leaving their poor mother with the three other, smaller children, the eldest of them being a cripple on crutches, the youngest still a child in arms.
During the month-long voyage there was one birth, one death and one marriage and, during one particularly night, in a dense fog, their ship struck a monstrous iceberg and was nearly wrecked, but was miraculously spared.
Christopher later recalled the incident as ‘a fearful experience,’ saying: ‘Everything that was not lashed down tight was thrown from side to side, with people, utensils and luggage strewn in to one great pile.
“The rattle of pans, dishes and baggage, and the cries of women and children, the shouts of men, the commands of officers, the banging and bumping of the ship against the iceberg made it seem as if two monsters were trying to beat each other to pieces and the great floating mountain of ice would overwhelm the sturdy ship and sink her in the deep sea with all on board.
“But it was not to be so – we were in the hands of the Master of ocean and earth and skies.”
Three years after being baptised Christopher Alston would then embark on an epic journey across the States as a Mormon Pioneer - WALKING well over 2,000 miles across the plains to Utah, via Wyoming.
This article’s co-auther, Sue, actually shares her great grandparents with Christopher Alston, he being her second cousin three times removed.
The ship had arrived in New York on June 23, 1864, and from there Christopher and the two Johns took a steamer to travel up the Hudson River into Canada to avoid the Armies of the Rebellion, broken bridges, up