Mary Butterley and Joshua Gillett

Gillett/Morgan/Gilbert/Smith/Hodgkinson.

Joshua Hague Gillett (or Gillette or Gillot) was born on July 8, 1807 in Sheffield, Yorkshire, England to John and Ann Hague Gillett.  Mary Butterley was born on August 15, 1815 in Ridgeway, Derbyshire, England to John and Milicent Charlesworth Butterley. Joshua and Mary were married at Rotherham, Yorkshire, England on July 15, 1832. They made their home in Handsworth which was close to Sheffield. Joshua's occupation was that of collier (a coal miner or a person who carries or sells coal). Joshua and Mary had eight children while at Handsworth:   Ann (1832 - our ancestor), John (1835), Jane (1837), Samuel (1839), Thomas (1841), Elizabeth (1843), Mark (1846), and Maria Henrietta (1848). Thomas (3) and Elizabeth (1) both died in December of 1844.

Joshua and Mary and the family joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in England in about 1847. Joshua and Mary and their six living children left England in 1849. They sailed aboard the "Zetland" from Liverpool on November 10, 1849*.

The clipper ship Earl of Zetland

Mark (3) died on November 14, 1849, just four days after they left Liverpool. He was buried at sea. The "Zetland" arrived in New Orleans the day after Christmas.  The Gillett family made their way to Alton, Illinois where they lived until 1852. While they lived in Illinois, their oldest daughter Ann (18) married John Morgan in St. Louis, on April 6, 1850. The Gillett's oldest son John (17) died on March 11, 1852.  A daughter, Mary Ann, was born in Alton on May 15, 1852.

The Gillett family left Alton and went to Kanesville, Iowa (Council Bluffs) where they joined a wagon train company. They left Kanesville in early June of 1852 (with a one month old baby) and arrived in the Salt Lake Valley on September 15, 1852.  Between March and September of 1852 the Gillet's persevered through ---- the death of their eldest son, the birth of their 9th child, a move 400 miles from Illinois to Iowa and then a 1000 mile trek to Utah. Upon arriving in the Salt Lake Valley, they camped on "the square". The square was located where the Salt Lake City and County building now stands. They lived in the Salt Lake Valley for one year, and then moved to Tooele, Utah in 1853. The first winter was spent in a dugout at the mouth of Settlement Canyon. They had no floor or windows and only cedar bark to lay on the floor with an old buffalo robe to sleep on.

In 1853 the people living in the old settlement of Tooele drew lots and laid out the present town of Tooele. Joshua drew a lot which was on Main Street between Vine Street and First North. They built a one-room log cabin, and this was where their daughter Sarah was born. While living in Tooele, Joshua worked on the old mud wall which surrounded the town on three sides. They lived in their log cabin in Tooele for three years and then moved to Milton, Tooele County where the gristmill was located. Another son, Brigham, was born in 1856 at Milton. Joshua was active in church affairs and was the leader of the choir. He and his daughter Mary Ann would entertain with singing and dancing at all the social gatherings. Joshua was very particular about his morning prayers. All the children had to be up, washed and ready to kneel at the old bench for prayer.

In 1858 Johnson's army threatened to move into the area to dissemble the Mormons. The Gillett family along with the rest of the Saints left their homes and moved to Lehi. A daughter Emma was born in Lehi in 1858. When the problem with Johnson's army was resolved, they moved back to Milton where their last child, Ellen Rebecca, was born in 1860. Joshua died on April 15, 1865 at age 57 and was buried in the old Tooele Cemetery. His body was later moved to the current cemetery. Mary moved back to their home in Tooele on Main Street after Joshua died. She was only fifty years old and had six children at home; the oldest at home was sixteen and the youngest was only five years old. Mary was a nurse and also a midwife. She could go out in the field, catch a sheep, shear it, wash the wool, spin it into cloth and make clothes out of the material. She walked to Milton and E.T. City for confinement cases (maternity). Milton is about ten miles and E.T. City (Lakepoint) about twelve miles from Tooele. Mary raised her children and made her living nursing. Mary's youngest child, Ellen (11), died  in 1871. 

Mary had buried a husband and five children. Mary was of a gentle and kind disposition. She nursed until she was nearly seventy years old. She worked in the Temple a great deal doing work for the dead. She was a Relief Society worker up to the time of her death. She died on June 5, 1885 at Tooele at the age of seventy. She was buried next to her husband in the Tooele City Cemetery.

 * The was the second Mormon immigration voyage the Zetland made in 1849.  See accounts of the voyage, the ship's log and passenger list CLICK HERE.  Note that the family name is recorded as "Gillot" and Ann is  listed as "Mary Ann", which is the name give Ann's little sister born 2 years after they sailed to America and a year after Ann was married.