Charlotte Carter Cornwall

Carter/Cornwall 

Charlotte Carter Corwall as a young mother with Joseph Alexander, (J. Spencer's Father) on his mother's right.  Kent Cornwall , as a very young boy remembers meeting his great grandfather, Patriarch Joseph Alexander.  Before serving as a Patriarch Joseph Alexander served for many years as Bishop of Maude Groberg Neeley.

Charlotte (Charlotta) Carter was born 21 June 1840 in Hampstead Marshall, Berkshire, England. She was the 7th of 8 children born to Sarah and John Carter.   Charlotte’s mother was highly cultured and brought up her children to be the same.  At 14 years of age Charlotte was baptized a member of the Mormon Church.  This angered her parents and family.  She was the only one of her family to embrace the gospel.   At only 20 years of age Charlotte heeded the call to come to Zion, and left Slough, up the River Thames.   She had bound herself to work for three years in a wealthy Englishman’s household for an amount sufficient for her journey to Utah.  She  traveled alone, leaving behind all family and friends.  Only a single girlfriend was there to see her off as they shared tears at her departure. 

During the crossing of the sea the beautiful young Englishwoman with black hair and friendly brown eyes. made the acquaintance of a fellow passenger whom she would come to call “my little Irishman”.  The short, red haired Irishman was Joseph Cornwall, traveling to Zion with his father Alexander.  On one occasion when Charlotte and Joseph were talking Joseph remarked that she looked pale and weak.  He asked her if she could eat an egg.  The shipboard food did not agree with her up to that time and her health and constitution was suffering.  “Why that would be a luxury.” Charlotte answered.  Joseph took the egg he had brought and gave it to the ship’s cook to make a fine English rice pudding.  It did the trick.

After the six week voyage the company of 500 Saints traveled for 2 weeks by rail and steamboat from New York to Florence (Winter Quarters), Nebraska.  Charlotte did not travel with Joseph across the plains.  She was assigned to another company.  Years later Joseph said of her “She was as sweet and pretty a little girl as ever walked across the plains.”

At journeys end, no one was waiting for Charlotte in Salt Lake.  Girls without family or friends were given temporary shelter in homes where they might work for their board.  Charlotte was sent to live with a family in Grantsville. The land was without trees, meadows or gardens, just tiny crude homes with flat lands of gray greasewood stretching out to the shores of the Great Salt Lake. The desolation and raw land took it’s tole and illness threatened Charlotte's health.  Charlotte returned to Salt Lake and found excellent employment with C.R. Savage, the pioneer photographer of Utah.  Savage gave her $1.00 per week, kindness and understanding.  With the first money she earned, Charlotte bought white china plates and saved for a linen tablecloth.

Joseph, in the mean time was searching for his own employment.  He found a job a Murphy’s molasses mill in Mill Creek.  Every day he walked from his sister’s house, where he and his father lived in the Salt Lake, to the mill, a distance of 6 miles.  Eventually he and his father acquired a small adobe house with a thatched roof and dirt floor for his work on a farm in Mill Creek.

With Charlotte back in Salt Lake she found herself on the constant look-out for her “little Irishman” who had been in the company with whom she traveled from Liverpool to Florence.   Finally she saw him among those attending a social in the old Bowery on Temple Square.  Joseph bounded up to Charlotte, “Lottie, I’ve found you, and I’ll never be letting you go again.”  They were married in the Endowment House 29 November 1862.  Joseph, short, broad chested, with a determined jaw was 32; Charlotte, educated, cultured, refined, and strong willed was 22.

Joseph and Charlotte (probably taken by C.R. Savage)

 They would make their first, extremely, meager home in the little adobe house in Mill Creek.  A blanket was hung from the ceiling to give them some privacy. During the winter Charlotte regularly would get up in the night to move pots and pans to catch the rain drops.  It was here that they bore their first child, Joseph Alexander 4 October 1863.  Charlotte and Joseph never left the Mill Creek Ward.  They had 8 children in Mill Creek and they both died and were buried there after 54 years of marriage.  Charlotte passed away 2 Sept 1921, just 5 years after the passing of her "little Irishman".