Thoughts and stories, by Pal

In our Family Zoom meeting last Sunday, we talked about the Prophet Joseph Smith.  My assignment for a few minutes was to talk about our ancestors who knew the Prophet Joseph Smith personally.  Between my husband and I we had 19 pioneer ancestors who knew the Prophet, some more closely than others, but at least met him. First is Hiram Dayton, my husband Wayne D Eckman's great grandfather, born  November 1st, 1798, in a small town in the middle of New York State.  He and his wife Permelia Bundy Dayton had a fine home in Parkman, Ohio.  They had large peach and apple o rchards, and a good farm with many horses, and stables. During this time when everything was going good, the Prophet Joseph Smith came to Parkman, and taught him the Gospel.  He baptized both him and his wife Permelia on February 18, 1832, the very first of our ancestors to join the Church, less than 2 years from when it was organized. After this, people who had been friends and neighbors ...

My second great grandfather on my mother's side lived quite an amazing life.  He had many health problems in his life, and yet he became strong enough to be one of the Prophet Joseph Smith's bodyguards in the last years of the Prophet's life.  His Gallitan, Missouri, fight incident is well known in Church  history.          John Lowe Butler, was born Apr, 8, 1808, in  Kentucky, to James and Charity Lowe Butler.  He was not a healthy child.  When he was seven years old he was stricken with inflammatory rheumatism which spread over his body from his toes to his fingertips.  This disease returned once or twice a year until he was 20.  When he was 19, the pain settled in his left side and his thigh and his arm began to fail him.   John became so frail that his mother could carry him about in her arms.   In spite of his long, continued illness, he stood six feet tall when he was 22. His extensive autobiog...

This was # 818, published Feb. 14, 2017 .   I told about Hiram Miles Dayton and his wife Anne Chamberlain in blog # 117.  But somehow I have neglected telling about the life of his father,  Hiram Dayton, and his wife Permelia Bundy,  who were the original pioneers in our Dayton line.  For those who have read more of our family stories, Wayne's mother was Gladys Tregenna Dayton -- who married Roy Waldamer Eckman.  This history is about  Gladys' great grandparents, Hiram and Permelia Dayton. The Dayton ancestral line is especially interesting, because we have brief records of each Dayton ancestor clear  back to Robert de Deighton, a yeoman, who was born in Yorkshire, in the late 1200's,  and became a freeman in 1305.  I will tell the Deighton/Dayton history very soon, down to  Ralph Dayton (Deighton)  who changed his name to Dayton, the immigrant ancestor.   He was a cordwainer, (or shoemaker) and had arrived in Ne...

I'm sorry -- I thought I had posted this.  It was # 197 in the blogs I have.    Do you have Mormon pioneer heritage? FamilySearch has created a simple sign-in tool that will allow you to discover your pioneer heritage. After you discover more about the pioneers in your history, take the time to read their trail stories, also found on this page. The past is an amazing storybook. http://spr.ly/6185lI9X    (copy and paste!) Wayne's great great grandfather Phillip Kirk, had quite a history, and 3 of his children came 4 years before the parents had enough money to come also.  This tells their touching stories. 61. Wayne's great great grandfather, Phillip Kirk, "Burned in effigy" Today, I want to tell the story of Wayne's great great grandfather, Phillip Kirk, and his wife Mary Ann Taylor.    Mary Ann was 17 years old when she married Philip Kirk, 20 years old. They had 10 children, four of whom died young. Early in the ...