Visiting the dead

While on our Utah road trip, we visited the gravesites of 45 ancestors. Below are examples of the headstones we photographed and a little about each ancestor.




William Casper – Born in Knox County Ohio in 1784. Family originally from Germany. He was with the Saints when they were driven out of Missouri to Nauvoo. He died in 1846 and buried in the old Nauvoo Cemetery. His headstone is one of the very few that still exist and can be read.
















Lydia Knight – Born in New England in 1812. Her first husband abandoned her. She married Newel Knight in 1835. Their marriage was the first performed by Joseph Smith. She was also with the Saints when they were driven out of Missouri to Nauvoo and with the Saints when driven out of Nauvoo. Her husband Newel died in Nebraska leaving her a widow with seven children and pregnant with an eighth. She spent three years in the Winter Quarters area before finally being able to come to Salt Lake in 1850. After an unhappy marriage of five years with John Dalton, Lydia married James McClellan and moved with him to Santa Clara Utah. After his death, she moved to St. George where she worked in the temple for several years until her death in 1884. Her headstone in the St. George Cemetery is very unique, being a round granite ball.








Alexander Dawson – Born in Scotland in 1838. At age 13 he went to sea as a cabin boy and lived the life of seaman until age 21. He jumped ship in South Africa and was thrown in jail. Here he met his wife when she brought food to the prisoners. After his release from jail Alexander and Elizabeth married in 1860 and sailed to America to join with the other Saints. They settled in present day East Layton and became quite prosperous, owning over 700 acres of land. He died in 1918 and was buried in the Kaysville Cemetery.


Eliza Briggs Stratton – Born in England in 1836. Emigrated with her family at the age of 18 to the United States to join the Saints in Utah. Her family were members of the ill-fated Martin Handcart Company that was caught in the early snow and freezing temperatures in Wyoming in 1856. Her father and one brother died near Martin’s Cove and a sister died before reaching the valley. Her feet were badly frozen and she walked in pain the rest of her life. She became the plural wife of James Stratton and in about 1870 went with him to the Muddy Mission is Southern Nevada. Here she died and was buried in 1871, after giving birth to her 8th child. James came back later to what is now Overton Nevada to place the headstone on her grave.



Joseph Egbert – Born in 1818 in Sullivan County, Indiana. Was with the Saints driven from Missouri to Nauvoo. Worked for three years on the Nauvoo Temple. Left with the other Saints in 1846 and drove the first wagon into the Salt Lake Valley as part of the advance party of the Vanguard Company that entered the valley on July 23, 1847. He married Louisa Taylor Warrick as a plural wife in 1852. Her husband had gone to the California gold fields in 1849 and died there. The Egberts settled in Kaysville and became very prosperous. Joseph died in 1898 and was buried in the Kaysville Cemetery.



William Wallace Casper – Born in 1821 in Richland County Ohio. He was with his parents when they were driven out of Missouri to Nauvoo. In Nauvoo he married Elizabeth Bean and fled with the other Saints in 1846. He volunteered for the Mormon Battalion in Winter Quarters and left his wife and baby daughter in the care of his 16-year-old brother in law. After walking 2000 miles with the Battalion to California, he was released and joined his wife and child in the Salt Lake Valley in October 1847. He settled in the Mill Creek area south of the main city. In 1854 he married our ancestor, Anne Ericson (also known as Elizabeth Ann Erickson but that’s another story). She was a recent immigrant from Sweden. She became the mother of nine children, including our ancestor, Luella Victoria. William died at the age of 87 in 1908 and was buried in the Mill Creek Cemetery (now known as the Elysian Burial Gardens).

Posted by Russ