John Chatterley

  General Notes:

John Chatterley was the son of Joseph and Nancy Morton Chatterley wasborn in Salford, Manchester, England, July 4, 1835. The family joined thechurch and left their beautiful home in England to join the Mormons inUtah. Accordingly they set sail from Liverpool, September, 1850 on theship North Atlantic commanded by Captain Brown. After almost eight weeksof rough traveling they landed at New Orleans. From there they went toSt. Louis where they remained for several months while preparations weremade for crossing the plains.

They left St. Louis early Spring 1851 in the John Brown company. Therewere 60 wagons in all, which were divided up into companies of ten. As itwas spring time they did not suffer hardships as some of the lateremigrants, although it was a long, tedious journey and they had manydiscouraging experiences. Occasionally, a stop would be made to huntgame. On one occasion father, in company with a Mr. Brown, was huntingout some distance from camp when they came upon a group of boys fromcamp. His brother Mart, James and Tom Corbett and some others had five orsix Sioux Indian boys, about their own age, in the creek trying to makethem wade down the stream where it was quite deep. They made the boys goback to camp, let the Indian boys get out of the water and started ontheir way again. However, they had not gone very far until they wereovertaken by a small group of Indians on horseback who immediately beganfiring upon them--the bullets whizzing by too close to be comfortable.The two men thought they were surely doomed but run as fast as theycould. They happened to be where there were numerous mounds of loosegravel and sand which were difficult for the Indians' ponies to surmount.The Indians soon became discouraged and turned back. They afterwardssupposed that they were shooting at them more to frighten them thananything else; but at this time Indians were still hostile andtroublesome to the emigrants.

Being a wheelwright, father's time was pretty well taken up in theevening helping the men fix their wagons and keeping them in goodcondition. Often he was asked to do guard duty, as well as his own work,which made it rather strenuous for a boy just turning 16, who had neverbeen used to that kind of work. They arrived in Salt Lake Valley thelatter part of September, 1851, just a year from the time they left theirhome in England.

--Nancy C. Walker

John married Sarah Whittaker, daughter of James Whittaker and Rachel Taylor, on 12 Mar 1862 in Cedar City, Iron, Utah, USA. (Sarah Whittaker was born on 16 May 1841 in Sharples, Bolton, Lancashire, England, died on 2 May 1905 in Cedar City, Iron, Utah, USA and was buried in Cedar City, Iron, Utah, USA.)