Sarah Thornton Coleman
Sarah
Thornton Coleman, daughter of William Thornton and Elizabeth Christian, was
born June 11, 1806
at Little Paxton, Huntingtonshire,
England. She and her older sister, Jane, were left
motherless at the age of ten and eleven, as their mother died August 23, 1816. The father placed the two girls in a boarding
school, and afterward married again.
Rules and regulations of the school were so strict that the students had
no childhood or girlhood pleasures.
Whipping was not allowed but some of the punishments were going without
food, undressing and going to bed in the daytime, separation from classmates,
etc. The most cruel punishment was that
given the children when found sleeping with the knees drawn up. They were expected to recline in bed
perfectly straight and should they draw their knees up in their sleep; the
teachers and nurses roughly jerked the legs down suddenly waking the child.
Sarah
Thornton decided, then and there that should she ever have children they should
never acquire their education at a boarding school. However, she remained at this school about
ten years, when she met and after a courtship of six weeks, married Prime
Coleman, son of George Coleman and Elizabeth Prime, born 1804 at Arlesey, Bedfordshire, England.
The
young man’s Father told him that he was making the mistake of his life by
marrying a girl who had spent her life at school, and could not be a helpmate
to a cattle man and a farmer. But as the
old saying is – “love goes where love is sent”—the young man decided he knew best,
and so Prime Coleman and Sarah Thornton were married August 1826.
They
owned and lived on a large, well-equipped farm at Thorncot, Bedsford, England. The house was a large two-story one
splendidly furnished. Here seven
children were born to them –George, Sarah, Prime Thornton, Ann Elizabeth,
William, and Rebecca; and later one more in Nauvoo, Illinois, USA named Martha Jane. There was always plenty of hired help in the
house and on the farm, so the mother’s only work was to look after her children
and manage the household affairs. It
took only a few years to convert the father-in-law that he was mistaken in his
opinion as to what an educated girl could and could not do, for
then Mr. Coleman finally acknowledged to his son and daughter-in-law that she
had made a wonderful wife and mother.
There
being no washboards or washing machines in those days, the family washing had
to be done by rubbing the clothes between the hands. This family’s washing was done every six
weeks and the task was not finished in less than three days.
One
day as Mrs. Coleman approached her home; she met a man with a beautiful feather
bed. He asked her to buy it. She thought it looked very much like her bed,
but she paid him for it. On taking it
upstairs to her bedroom she discovered that her feather bed was missing, and
upon examination, found she had really bought her own feather bed from a “would
be robber.”
One
of the girls who lived for years with the Coleman family at Thorncot was Lucy
Brown, whose father had died, her mother had married again and she had to go
out to service. She also joined the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and came to America with
the Coleman family. After arriving in Nauvoo, Illinois,
she went to live with the John Taylor family at a dollar a week. There she met and married Elias Smith. They came to Utah, September 1851. The Coleman and Smith family have been close
friends ever since “Aunt Lucy” as we have always called her, lived so long with
the Prime and Sarah Coleman family at Thorncot,
England.
Mrs.
Coleman was much more inclined toward religion than was her husband and often
said that whil she attended church, he enjoyed more to rest at home reading and
smoking his cigar.
When
the Elders found them, the Coleman family was not long in making their decision
to join the church and come to the New World. So, with their four children who were over
eight years of age, they were baptized in 1841 and 1842, and on the first of January, 1843,
left their home at Thorncot in a large baggage wagon and began the journey to America.
Christopher
Layton, (for whom the city of Layton,
Davis County, Utah, was afterward named), had been one of
the hired men on the Coleman farm in England. He too, was baptized and came with the
family. He and the oldest son, George
Coleman, about 16 years of age, drove the baggage in a very cumbersome wagon
with three strong horses. Listen to
their part of their trip with the baggage wagon: “It was against the laws of England for
teamsters to ride, and while both of us were riding, a policeman saw us and
gave chase. We whipped up the horses and
after about three miles we out-ran him and slowed down to a peaceable jog.” Leaving the wagon at Wolverhamton, they went
by train to Liverpool, where they joined other
Saints, and were enrolled on the ship Swanton, (Captain Davenport), as the 19th
company of Latter-Day emigrants, with Lorenzo Snow as Company’s captain. They had to stay at Liverpool
two weeks waiting for repairs on the ship, but made the vessel their home,
doing the cooking and sleeping on board.
Brother Layton acted as cook for the Coleman family. Once incident in their history says – “One
day Brother Coleman said to Layton:
‘Chris, ain’t you going to peel some potatoes and make us a pie?” So Chris made the meat and potatoes into a
pie, and when it was all baked, all the others wanted to share it, and saked
for the recipe for “Chris’ Pie: as they called it.”
On
January 16th,
1843, they set sail from Liverpool,
the company numbering 212 souls. After
sailing for seven weeks and three days, they arrived at New Orleans, Louisiana,
and were transferred to the ship “Amarauth” in which they sailed up the Mississippi River to St. Louis.
There they were transferred
from the steamer to a barge, and here they had to stay two weeks waiting for
the ice to break. About the 7th
or 8th of April; a small steamer fastened a cable to the barge and
ugged it up the river to Nauvoo, Illinois, where they landed April 12, 1843,
three months and twelve days after leaving their home at Thorncot,
England. Choice feather beds and other
valuable baggage had been left behind, or thrown overboard enroute, to decrease
the weight of the ship, as the journey was a long tedious one.
When
they arrived at Nauvoo, Illinois, the Coleman family went to live on
the farm belonging to the Patriarch Hyrum, as Brother Prime Coleman had been an
experienced farmer in his native country.
Here
they suffered privation and hardships not known before by this prosperous
family, and the mother gave birth to her eighth child, Martha Jane, September 15, 1843, four
months after their arrival in Nauvoo,
Illinois. A little over one year of this new life of
sacrifice and hardship, and typhoid fever broke out in Nauvoo. Some of the Coleman children were down with
it. The father was also ill. A cat had broken the windowpane. Rather than allow the mother to get out of
her bed, Brother Coleman insisted on fixing something to stop the wind from the
sick room. While in the act of doing so
he took a chill and said—“I am a dead man.”
Typhoid fever developed and he lived only a short time. The father and the oldest daughter Sarah, age
15 years, died June 1844, within a few days of each other, and were buried in
an old well along with the others.
This
left Sister Coleman with seven children to raise, lacking the comforts of the
olden days in England,
and almost destitute of the necessities of life.
The
same month, June 1844, about two weeks after these sad deaths in the Coleman
family, the Prophet and Patriarch were martyred, bringing to the Saints an
almost unbearable sorrow. One of Sister
Coleman’s daughters, Elizabeth, about ten years old, was staying at the home of
the Patriarch Smith at the time. She
often related the scene of grief and sorrow in the home when the bodies of the
brethren were brought home to their wives and children.
The
widow Sarah Thornton Coleman, with her family moved from the Smith farm into
the eleventh ward of Nauvoo. Here she
met David Evans, who was Bishop of that ward, and when the Saints were driven
from county or state to another, she with her children shared the persecutions
and trials of the exodus from Nauvoo and of crossing the plains. Being driven further west from state to state,
they spent between four and five years on the journey to Utah, stopping at times for the men to work
and purchase teams, wagons, and provisions to continue the long trek over
mountains and bridgeless streams. One
stop lasted about three years in Nodaway
County, Missouri,
where they built log huts. Babies were
born in these huts with no doors, windows, chimneys or floors. Food consisted mostly of corn bread, and bran
for coffee. The corn had to be ground on
a handmill. Here the men had plenty of
work, and completed a good outfit for the trip across the Plains.
Companies
were organized for the move and the Coleman family was placed in Bishop David
Evans’ Company. They made the final
start on June 15, 1850,
arrived in Salt Lake Valley
the following September 1851. President
Brigham Young sent David Evans south to preside over the little colony already
located in Dry Creek.
Sarah
Thornton Coleman and her seven children, three sons and four daughters, came
with the Evans family and remained to help build up what is now Lehi City,
Utah. Her sons built a two-room house
for her which was among the first adobe homes built there. It still stands (1934), one block west and a
half block north of the Relief Society Hall.
Sister
Coleman was chosen and acted as president of the first Relief Society organized
in Lehi, in the fall of 1868 and served in that position many years. She was blessed with the gift of tongues and
used that gift many, many times.
The
Coleman family were among the first to employ a genealogist in England to
search out their ancestors, and have done the temple work for hundreds by the
surname of “Coleman, Thornton,
Prime and Christian,” from England,
also the Coleman’s of America. Sister Coleman and her oldest son, George,
with his wife, Jane Smith, began work in the St. George Temple soon after it
was opened for ordinances; work for the dead, and as soon as the Manti and
Logan Temples were finished, all her family joined in this work for the
dead. When not able to go and do the
work personally they furnished the cash to hire it done.
Sarah
Thornton Coleman raised a highly respected and very prosperous family; all of
them became active in the church in the cities where they lived. She lived an exemplary life, passing on at
the ripe age of 86 years nine months, with full faith in the Gospel for which
she had sacrificed so much. She died March 1, 1892, at Lehi, Utah.
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