1850-1918
The Dalton farm at Wyocena was established and the sons of John Dalton longed to make their own homes. On 5 September 1850 Mathew, Peter and James joined an independent company of California gold-seekers, and headed west. Peter accomplished his dream, took his gold and established a flourishing tannery and shoe business in New York state. Mathew stayed in Ogden, Utah, obviously tired of travel, and was converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day saints – the Mormons. He was baptized a member of that church on 5 December 1850 in the Weber River, near the site of the present day railroad yards. On 15 December 1850 he married Rozilla Marilla Whitaker in Ogden, Utah.
At the age of 17, John had taught Mathew the carpenter trade, and this knowledge served him well in this new life. He built one of the first of two houses to be built near the spot where he had been baptized. Mathew and Rozilla became the parents of a son on 31 October, 1851, whom they named James Mathew. On 21 June 1853 another son, William Albert was born. Mathew was a good carpenter and worked at his trade, but found it too confining. He had enjoyed his life on the farm in Wisconsin and decided to become a farmer.
Rose must have been a little upset at Matt’s decision to move to a small settlement about 25 miles north of Ogden. On 10 April 1854 Brigham Young, President of the Mormon Church, had issued the following statement: “Although the Indians are quiet, and have been for several months, yet we have no assurance that they will remain so; it therefore becomes necessary for your temporal salvation and the quiet of the territory, that you should be prepared for any emergency that may arise. On no occasion trust yourselves to go into canyons or by places where an Indian can lurk unseen by you, without first exploring and ascertaining that all is safe. Go in companies sufficiently strong to intimidate the foe, and you will be less liable to be attacked. So with all your preparations, be prepared, ready and fully capable of defending yourselves at a moment’s notice.” (Brigham Young, The Man and His Work, by Preston Nibley, pg. 213)
The community was called Willard. Although the land was rocky, the soil was fertile, and Matthew planted the first orchard in that area. Apple, plum, apricot, peach, cherry and pear trees were set out in carefully spaced rows, and raspberry, gooseberry and currant bushes were started. He also planted a grape arbor and a garden to feed his growing family.
On 12 April 1855, the Dalton’s first daughter was born in Willard, and was given the name of Mary Malinde. But when she was 5 months old, on 14 September, she died.
It had been a hard summer, there had been very little rain, and then the crickets came and ate what was left. In October they were cheered when Brigham Young and six others from Salt Lake City, passed through Willard on their way to Brigham City, a few miles north, to work on a mill being built there by Lorenzo Snow. That winter was extremely severe; there was deep snow and continued cold. Cattle were dying for lack of food and many of the people had nothing to eat except potatoes and a little salt. In Salt Lake families were rationed from one-half to two thirds of a pound of bread-stuff per day. On January 27, 1856, Brigham Young spoke from the Tabernacle and told the people: “I might say something with regard to the hard times. I do not apprehend the least danger of starving, for until we eat up the last mule, from the tip of the ear to the end of the fly whipper, I am not afraid of starving to death.” He also told the people they should never be without three to five years provisions on hand. “If you will learn wisdom now, I will promise you in the name of Israel’s God, that the earth will yield its abundance as it has heretofore.” (Pg. 243 – Brigham Young, the Man and His Work.)
Survive they did, and when spring came they planted again, and this year there was a bounteous harvest and the orchard grew and flourished.
Matthew Willliam became the first man in Utah to introduce stone ditches or aqueducts to carry water for irrigation,
Their testimonies had grown, and on 13 June 1856, Matt and Rose traveled to Salt Lake City and were sealed in the Endowment House on Temple Square. Rose was expecting a lovely Christmas for the family and on 10 December 1856 she gave birth to a baby daughter, whom they named Rozilla Marilla.
The next winter was as severe as the previous one and eight feet of snow fell in the Salt Lake Valley from November 1856 to January 1857. But this time the people were prepared with food storage for themselves and their animals.
The crops grew – their family grew. John Alma was born 26 October 1858; Jane Emeline on 17 March 1861; Martha Mallissa on 10 May 1862. On 20 November 1864, Matthew and Rose took their sons James and William Albert to be baptized. On February 8, 1864 Ellen Maria was born. And on 12 October, 1866 Rose bore her last child, a son, and named him George Alfred. The baby died five months later on March 31, 1867.
During this time, Matthew received letters from his family in Wyocena, Wisconsin, telling of their lives, marriages, children, news of the neighbors, the crops and prices. Peter and his four children from New York had been to visit his parents and thought Matthew very foolish to be spending his life in such a manner, Father John reported that he was thankful for a pipe full of tobacco and good crops. Phillip Dalton wrote that eggs were 5 cents, butter 10 cents, pork 12 to 15 cents and sheep were selling for $1 to $2. Potatoes were 25 cents per bushel; horses $10., $20., and $25. Per head. Brother Michael Dalton wrote on 10 July 1855 stating: “I should think that you ought to come out this fall if you ever expect to see father or mother alive.” (From information presented by Bertha Dalton Smith)
However Rose may have felt about having her last child at the age of 37, Matthew was not ready to rest on his laurels. On 5 September 1868 he married Alice Ophelia Miller in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City, Utah. He was 40 and she was 22. These were the days of polygamy and many men were taking more than one wife. This was sanctioned by the church, if the first wife was willing and the man was financially able to support a second wife and any children born to them.
In October Conference in Salt Lake in 1869 , President Brigham Young told of his early
years following the Prophet Joseph Smith and asking of him, “What can I do to build up Zion?” He was told to build up Zion by preaching the Gospel everywhere he could. Perhaps this started a fire in Matthew, or maybe two women in the same house with 7 children were just too much for any man. In November 1869 he went on a mission to the southern states for the Mormon Church. Enroute he visited his parents in their home in Wisconsin. On November 1869 he wrote, “I bore my testimony to my father, but he did not receive my testimony.” (From information presented by Bertha Dalton Smith) On the 11th he tried to teach his sister, Mary, and brother, Phillip, but was openly insulted and abused. He left to continue to his mission, never to see his parents again. Nancy Carrol Dalton died 3 February 1874 and John Dalton died 22 March 1877. Both were buried in the Rocky Run Cemetery, Wyocena, Wisconsin.
On February 28 1870, Matthew while still on his mission, received the following letter from his brother Peter in Waddington, New York,
Dear Brother,
Yours of the 23rd is received in which you say that you are stopping in Philadelphia at present and that your health is good.
I am glad to hear that your health is good and that it may continue good. It is now some 26 years or more since I have seen you and not long since I have known that you were alive. Why in all those years did you not write to me before. Surely you knew where I was, if I did not know where you were, perhaps when you left your church, and the church of your fore-Fathers, that all your feelings of friendship for all belonging were changed, as your whole nature must have been changed, ir order to allow you to pursue the course which you have chosen…
What are you wandering all over these United States for? Are you entirely bereft of all common sense and decency? Stop and think before it is too late. Have you adopted the extreme folly of the dupes with which you are connected? Are you guilty of the crime of ‘poligamy’? You have not enlightened me on that point. If you could assure me now or at anytime that you had abandoned Mormonism and returned to your church, I would take great pleasure in going far to see you, but while you persist in the course you are pursuing, I would have no pleasure in seeing you either here or there. I hope God will change your heart. This is the wish of your affectionate brother
P. Dalton
How sad it must have been for Matthew to want so badly to renew his family ties and the present to them the true church, only to have all of them turn against him.
Matthew William sat on a rock, looking at his farm. It was 20 years since he had left his parents home in Wisconsin as a boy: joined the Mormon Church; married, and it had been 15 years since he had moved his family to Willard. His orchard was bearing fruit for his family, with excess to barter or sell. He loved Rose and they had brought 10 children into the world, nine of them still living and blessing his life. He had his young second wife, Alice, who on 17 April 1870 presented him with a son whom they named Fredrick William.
On October that same year the whole family was shocked and saddened by the death of 14 year old Rozilla Marilla.
Matthew Williams was a hard working man and in 1872 he went East and purchased two turbine-type sawmills with 26 horsepower capacity. He returned to Willard and built a large mill up Willard Canyon in the left hand fork near the large spring. He employed Denmark Jensen to operate th mill, and later on his son James took charge. James employed Dwight Harding and some Welchmen to handle the logging. The slopes of the canyon were very steep and logs were brought down on two wheels of the wagon’s running-gear, letting the ends of the logs drag to act as brakes. They owned many horses and oxen, but preferred oxen to drag the logs down because they were more steady and less easily frightened. James and Nephi Brinker also operated an adobe and brick yard on the shore of the Great Salt Lake west of Willard. The clay formation of the soil was ideal for this purpose. They were known as the ‘The Mounds’ and the brick was used to build homes, schools and public buildings.
James, with the help of his father, erected a molasses mill near the mouth of Willard Canyon. James Whitaker, his grandfather bought this mill from him and moved it four miles south to Cold Springs where he operated it by water power from the springs.
On 25 July 1880, the Dalton family was saddened once more by the death of 18 year old Martha Malissa. Of his six daughters, three had died in their youth.
In April 1883, Matthew William and Apostle George Teasdale were called to proselyte among the Cherokee Nation in the Indian Territory (Oklahoma). Unable to communicate in the Cherokee language, the missionaries had been limited to proselyting among the white settlers and those of mixed blood who could speak English.
After months of fruitless effort, the two missionaries turned their backs on Tableqush, the capital city of the Cherokee Nation. Two miles out of the city they were both impressed to return, and that night Matthew dreamed that he was speaking to a large assemblage in the Cherokee language and that his message was being received
Matthew’s dream convinced them that they had to find a way to bring the gospel message to the Cherokees in their own language. Filled with a renewed spirit, Elder Teasdale prophesied that the work of the Lord “would open there from that time forth and the land should be blessed as a gathering place.”
A prompting to take a Book of Mormon to a Cherokee chief whom they had once briefly met brought a surprisingly favorable reception followed by an invitation to speak at the funeral of an Indian man. Impressed by Elder Teasdale’s sermon on the resurrection, another Cherokee invited him to speak at a nephew’s funeral and promised to erect a bowery under which the missionaries could hold the funeral and other meetings,
Later, finding a Cherokee who knew English well, Elder Teasdale wrote a number of tracts which the Indian translated and circulated them among the Cherokees, who for the first time had the gospel brought to them in their own language. With the help of their new Cherokee friends, the elders began to acquire a knowledge of the language.
At the end of one year, Matthew returned home and Elder Teasdale was reassigned. But both were assured that their efforts to bring to the Cherokee people the record of their forefathers had taken root and would continue to bear good fruit. (from an article in Church News by Carol Cornwall Madsen)
Matthew was an ardent missionary, and in the years from 1869 to 1891 he fulfilled missions to Europe, Mexico and four in the United States. For 48 years he was the president of the 59th Quorum of the Seventies and he became a high priest. He also served as counselor to the Bishop and was a Justice of the Peace, a delegate to the Territorial Convention for one term, and a Captain of the Territorial Militia. Before his life would end, he would have worked in the Logan Temple for 3 years and performed temple work for 3,000 persons who had left this life and never had the opportunity to go to the temple.
After Matthew returned home, he continued to work his farm, and during this time he and Alice were divorced.
Death seemed to always be near and on 14 July 1892 Ellen Maria, who had married Alexander Stowell just 6 years previous, died. On 3 June 1898, at the age of 69, Matthew’s wife of 48 years passed away. All were buried in the Willard Cemetery.
But death did not dull the spark of life in Matthew William Dalton. He was 70 years old, and on 7 June 1899 he married a 40 year old lady named Sarah Ann Hymas. On 5 May 1900 a daughter was born and named Ada May. On 15 February 1903 a son Moroni Hymas was born.
Matthew continued to tend his orchard, and in 1906 he wrote a booklet called, “A Key to This Earth”. He wrote of his genealogy and his ideas of the history of the earth and how he had studied history, geography, astronomy, and compared his learnings with scripture.
In his later years, he was the first to illustrate by allegorical declaration the difference between pioneer life and later days in Utah. He secured many patents in his lifetime and having little to do, he built a sailboat designed to carry freight. It was constructed with paddle wheels on the side, and boasted a cabin which could accommodate several passengers.
The following is the preface to the booklet written by Matthew William Dalton in 1906, and called a “A Key to This Earth”. Copied from the book in the possession of Fay Madsen Ward.
As a preface to his little book I desire to present a short sketch of myself, a brief outline of my life, of my life’s labors and of my life’s thoughts as to this material world and Him who was and is the great creator of this beautiful earth as well as of all other great planets by which this Mother Earth is surrounded.
I am descended from the line of Sir Walter Dalton, who married the daughter of Louis VII, King of France (the Younger, was king of France from 1137 A.D. to about 1179) and who passed over into Ireland with Henry the Second on the invasion of Ireland, where he acquired large possessions some 60 miles from Dublin, in Westmeath County, settling on Mont Dalton, which is in the barony of Mont Conrath. From this noble sire sprang all the Daltons of Ireland. This Sir Walter Dalton whom I have named was of Norman extraction.
I was born in the town of Madrid, St. Lawrence County, State of New York, in the year of our Lord 1830. I was born of goodly parents whose pursuits in life were farming and stock raising. My father’s religious profession was that of a Catholic, and of necessity I was compelled to follow the discipline and training of my parents. I was therefore baptized or christened without my consent or choice, but as I became a man I, out of choice, became a student of the Latter Day Saints and the Gospel truths they advanced.
In the year 1850 I was baptized in the waters of the Weber River near the point where the present great railroad station in Ogden City is now located. I had the honor to build one of the two first houses that were erected on the lots first surveyed on that at present historic spot.
From my youth I was of a philosophic strain of thought. I followed the same pursuits as those of my father, but my mind was always given to a mechanical trent of thought, and when about seventeen years my father put me to learn the carpenter trade in which I became quite proficient. During all my early life I was given to the study of the sacred history of the Bible and its 66 books written by prophets who were authorized to reveal the great secrets of God which had been made known to them by our blessed Redeemer. I love to contemplate the history of this lovely old mother earth, and as my mind is as full of life’s and of youth’s vigor as a man of thirty years, and my bodily strength as that of a man of fifty years I feel to write not as a man whose experience is only thirty years, but as a man of seventy-five years experience.
Since I came to Utah I followed the pursuits of the carpenter trade, but found that too confining, so I concluded to follow the same pursuits as those of my dear old father Adam, and I have, as I believe, acquired a practical knowledge of the agricultural and horticultural sciences a the world calls them.
Now, dear reader: as you may follow me in this short history of God’s wondrous works, I hope you will not expect too much of me in this my effort in presenting my thoughts, and in writing up this great problem which the scientific world has studied so long. I began my study in history, and then in geography, then in astronomy, and to show the great movements of the waters of the mighty ocean, and to show the great philosophy of the earth being a triple sphere, the two outer spheres being spoken of as the earth’s wings on which it rolls around on its poles in its diurnal and annual motion around the sun, for the “earth rolls upon her wings, and the sun giveth his light by day and the moon giveth their light by night, and the stars also giveth their light as they roll upon their wings in glory in the midst of the power of God. (Doc. and Cov,, 88:45)
All his children had been married in the Endowment house or in the temple. He had lived a good life and on 14 March 1918 at the age of 89 years, Matthew William Dalton died at Willard, Utah and was buried there.
Matthew William Dalton Rozilla Whitaker Dalton
Family of Matthew William & Rozilla Whitaker Dalton
Back row: John Jane William Albert
Front row: Martha (F.) Matthew (M.) Rozilla James
About 1877