(Written by Ella Colton Palmer, March 9, 1938)
Because the lives of my great grandmother and her daughter, my grandmother, are so entwined and because they were both pioneers having come to this valley together, I can hardly write the biography of one without the other.
My great grandmother, Ann Hewitt White Ceaston, was born March 9, 1813 on the Sir Richard Arkwright estate in Sutton, Derbyshire, England. She married Robert White. Both she and her husband, Grandpa White were converted to the Latter Day Saint religion in England thru grandma Colton of Whom I shall tell later.
Ellen White Colton was also born in Sutton Derbyshire, England, on the 14th day of August 1832. In the later years of her life she often told me of how beautiful England was with its green fields and lanes and flowers everywhere in the spring. She said that when a child, she loved to walk in the evening along the green Wickthorn hedges and also how she used to pick the huckle berries that grew wild everywhere in the country. Then she would sigh and say she wished she could see it all once again, but would not care to make her home there.
One of the pleasant recollections of her childhood was when Queen Victoria was crowned and went through the Shires of England that the people might see her. Great Grandpa White put Grandma on his shoulder so that she could see the Queen as she passed.
When she was between fifteen and sixteen years old she became ill with what the Doctors then said was a slow-decline. Grandpa White being well to do for those times, decided with Great Grandmother that Ellen should travel and go to the sea shore for her health. So she started out to visit friends and relatives in various places. “God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform”, and so it was while at the home of a friend who had previously joined the church that she was invited to go and attend a street meeting of the Mormon missionaries. One of these missionaries was Jediah M. Grant, father of Pres. Heber J. Grant. In telling us about her conversion she said, “When I heard them preach it seemed as if I had heard it all before, that it was nothing new and I knew it was true”. She bought a book of Mormon and a lot of tracts and after reading them she was baptized Feb. 1, 1848 when sixteen years of age. She said they broke the ice on the river to baptize her. Her health was restored and she started homeward with many misgivings about the books she had secured and afraid for her parents to know that she was now a member of the despised Mormon people.
When she arrived home Great Grandmother wanted to know what she had in her small suitcase but Grandma said “I am very hungry. I must first eat, then I will show you”, knowing that very soon she must tell them all about it and was putting it off as long as possible. When she had finished she got out the books and told all about the elders and their message. Great Grandmother looked the books over and started to read the Book of Mormon., She sat into the early hours of the morning so interested was she in the message and her testimony was the same as Grandmothers, “that it was as nothing new to her” It seemed to her that she had always known it. Grandmother then told her mother she had been baptized and some time later Great Grandmother and Great Grandfather White were also baptized and their home from then on till they left England was always open to the missionaries. She fed them and washed and mended their clothes when necessary.
About three years later Ellen White married Joseph Colton, who was also born in England. Two children were born there in Sutton Derbyshire. Robert, who died in infancy, and Ann Elizabeth, who later married Daniel R. Evans of this city.
Having joined the church, my great grandparents and my grandparents thoughts now turned to Zion and preparations were made for that long journey across the Atlantic and thence almost across the United States. This journey would not now seem much when one can cross the ocean on a fast steamer in from seven to five days and across the continent in not many hours, but in those days, in sailing vessels it took weeks, and to cross the continent by ox team or walking, many months.
Their friends and relatives, whom she never saw again, three sisters and a brother and the pastor of their former church pleaded with them not to take the trip, but undaunted and full of faith they sailed from Liverpool April 26, 1855 on the ship W. M. Stetson with 293 Saints on board and under the direction of Aaron Smith Hurst. Aunt Ann started to talk and walk while on the ship crossing the Atlantic. After four weeks and one day they landed at New York on June 24, 1855.
In this particular company that sailed on the W. M. Stetson ship was also Ike and Joe Allen, father and Grandfather of the Allens of Portage, Utah. They were then small boys put in the care of my Grandparents, in England , to make the journey to Zion, and as long as Grandma Colton lived they always came to Malad to see her. From New York my grandparents went to Pennsylvania, where grandpa worked in the coal mines. They lived in or near Scranton for about seven years and it was here that Uncle Joe Colton and Aunt Sarah Parry (wife of Thomas Parry) were born.
My great grandparents, Ann and Robert White, anxious to get to Zion, and being able financially to buy and equip two new wagons and teams started out with their single daughter Mary, leaving behind in Pennsylvania, Grandma and Grandpa Colton who were expecting the arrival of their baby, who was Aunt Sarah. They traveled close to a company of Saints and there, somewhere out on those dusty plains, we , her descendants, have never found out where Grandpa White got a prickly pear thorn in his heel. It developed into blood poisoning and he passed away. They took one of the wagon boxes and made a coffin for him and he was buried where he died, “Out on the plains”. Great Grandma then sold one of the outfits at a sacrifice, to the company they were traveling with and left on the plains, dishes, furniture, linen and other things she was bringing in the two wagons to Zion in order that her new home would be more comfortable.
Grandpa and Grandma Colton left Stranton in the spring of 1861 coming in Joseph Horn and Homer Duncans Company. Grandma carried Aunt Sarah almost all the way across the plains. They arrived in Salt Lake City in the fall of 1861. She told me that the first part of the journey from Scranton, to where the Emigrant trains were made up, was by railroad. The Civil War had just started and it was dangerous to be traveling, for many times the Southern soldiers would shoot at the trains when they stopped or started up from a station . In Salt Lake City, Great Grandma White met Christopher Ceaston who had just returned from a mission for L.D.S. Church and in due time, they were married. It was here also that her other daughter Mary met and married Phillip Shopp, a German. She left for Wyoming, where her posterity still live.
They did not remain in Salt Lake City long for Bishop Hunter, presiding Bishop of the church owned a large farm in Weber Valley and he placed my Grandparents and Great Grandparents up there to run the farm for him.
It was there, near what is now Morgan Utah, that Aunt Mary, first wife of Hyrum Sawyer and my father, E.W. Colton was born. They endured hardships incidents to pioneer life and one whole winter they lived on wheat ground up in a coffee mill, which was brought from England. We still have that coffee mill as a relic. When my father was nine months old they left Weber and started for this, the Malad Valley arriving here Oct. 1866. There were only about two dozen families here at the time, among them were the Ben Thomas, Daniel Thomas, Bishop Daniel Daniels, Pete Waddle Gaulter, John Jones, Williams, and Peck families and others. The Dredges, Goodlyfs, Si Robbins and J. H. Harrison families came about the same time as grandma came. They located a farm and spent the first winter in a dug out over by J.R. Dredge’s home. Then they built one room of green quaking aspens and later two log rooms on the farm lot. I can well remember when they lived there. They had no nails in the house, only wooden pegs and they used a fireplace . Great Grandmother and Grandfather Ceaston built a log house on the lot where grandma’s present house stands and it was here that she passed away July 9, 1882 at the age of 72. Hers was the first funeral to be held in the old Tabernacle. She was also a teacher in the first Relief Society in Malad Valley.
Three children were born to Grandma Colton in Malad, George, Ellen, and James who died in infancy. Grandpa died in 1882 and for almost 40 years, Grandma was a widow left to raise her family alone. My father being only 16 years old at the time. Uncle George preceded her in death by one year.
She passed peacefully away in Malad. April 3, 1921 at the age of 88 years, seven months and nineteen days since then Joe and Ann have died leaving three of her nine children, E.W. Colton, Ellen Colton and Sarah. The following appeared in the paper at the time of her demise.
“ Another pioneer of this valley has gone to her reward, another of those early settlers has answered the summons. In the death of Mrs. Ellen Coltoon, who passed away Sunday, after an illness of two months. Malad Valley lost a worthy citizen, one of those kind, hospitable natures that the struggle incident ot pioneer life produced.
“Hers was a long and useful life, filled with deeds of which her children may well be proud. She leaves 5 children, 24 Grandchildren, and 50 great grandchildren to mourn her loss.”