Comfort Davis (born 1801) married John Bowkett Boulter 7.5.1822 in Newent, and they went on to have three children, Elizabeth, William and John, all baptised in Bran Green/Upleadon and all of them were listed on the 1841 census. Elizabeth subsequently married John Jarvis in Ross 14.12.1845. After that I had lost track of them, but now find that they all boarded the ship (James Pennel) from Liverpool to New Orleans on 2.9.1849 together with Elizabeth and John’s 2 year old daughter Augusta Comfort. This ship carried “236 souls of the latter-day Saints” from various parts of the UK who were on route eventually to Salt Lake City.

Although Comfort and John die in a cholera epidemic in Iowa on August 1850, the rest of the family where involved in one of the Mormon Pioneer overland treks to Salt Lake City. No other members of their extended families (the Davis's) were tempted to follow them it seems, as they continued to stay in and around Newent.

Elizabeth and John and their daughter are listed on the ships passenger list as Ennis. I presume this is just a transcription error from their listed name as “Jarvis” on FOD records?

Presumably both families “converted” prior to the voyage, particularly as Elizabeth and John had a Christian marriage in 1845. Can anyone help with information on Mormon missionaries/meeting places etc in the Newent area around 1845 -1850, as it would appear that there was a Bran Green branch and Cliffords Mene branch of the Church of the LDS with original records of members held in Utah (which I will try and track down).

I can access a lot of information after the journey across the Atlantic, but it’s what happened (and why and how) between 1845 and the voyage that I’m keen to discover, so any help or direction would be appreciated.

Mike

Hi Mike,
the following prior thread, which MAY be of interest, was thrownup by a Google search for "Newent Mormon" although curiously that "hit" was not repeated by this website's own search engine.
http://www.forum.forest-of-dean.net/index.php?mode=thread&id=20701

Searching this website gives some possible leads including:
Re the name Ennis appears in this thread re nearby(ish) Weston U Penyard Mormons.
http://www.forum.forest-of-dean.net/index.php?id=21613

This family left Newent(I guess)in the 1850s for Utah, possibly some clues there ?.
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/659300/A-final-record.html?pg=4

You may already know (I'm a complete ignoramus to all this) that according to the LDS website the World's oldest Mormon Chapel is near Staunton(Newent) and still going since 1836. It's now run largely as a Museum/visitor centre, perhaps they can help your enquiries ?.

http://www.cotswolds.info/worcestershire/oldest-mormon-chapel.shtml

Or the official LDS website link which can be slow to load but worth waiting for.
http://www.lds.org.uk/about-the-church/the-church-in-the-united-kingdom/places-of-inter...

It seems our Three Counties area was of great significance to the Mormon Church.
http://www.lds.org.uk/about-the-church/the-church-in-the-united-kingdom/places-of-inter...

Hopefully some of this may help, I for one had no idea the Mormon Church had any involvement whatsoever with England never mind the Forest area so all very interesting for me.

Jefff,

Thanks for the additional information and links. This is all adding to the background information, but i guess i'll just have to keep digging to see if i can find where, when and why they converted before they made the long journey to the USA.

If the oldest Mormon place of worship in the world "Gadfield Elm" is at Staunton, its only a few miles away from where they lived in Bran Green/Newent, so maybe that is where they used to worship?

As you've mentioned, because of the success of the missionaries in this area, perhaps a lot more people emigrated to the USA with them than we imagined?

Mike

Hi Mike,
you're welcome, all very interesting for me. I can only assume, I think reasonably, that they became Mormons simply because that was clearly an important religion within their relatively small local community, perhaps their friends or relatives were already Mormons ?. As suggested I'm sure contacting the Gadfield Chapel/museum will shed further light on this. Perhaps they even kept records of names etc ?.
And as to numbers, I'd assumed you might be already knowledgable on the Mormons, if not one yourself, I don't even know where you are now ?.
As a Cinderford Forester myself this whole Mormon situation is completely new to me and I must say quite surprising. Then again until I discovered this great forum last year I'd never imagined there was such a variety of religions & chapels etc in the Forest, coming from a CoE family I'd rather assumed that was the norm everywhere. Until yesterday in my thinking the Pendock/Staunton area was "just" a fairly sparsely populated rural farming community.
As to the numbers who went to the USA, as per the website link above:

"During the mid 1800’s the western USA was settled by thousands of British emigrants from Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire.

Their story, and their journey, began here....

In 1840, Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (“Mormons” or LDS) travelled from their headquarters in Nauvoo, Illinois, to the three counties and taught the local people the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. During the next 9 months, 1,800 people were “converted”, including almost the entire membership of a local Christian organisation, known as the United Brethren.

In less than two years most of the converts had left their homes and sailed across the Atlantic..."

Re the Gadfield Chapel itself, just a few mile from Brands Green, to reiterate:

"The Gadfield Elm Chapel near the village of Pendock in Worcestershire, England, is the oldest extant chapel of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church).

The structure was built in 1836 as a religious meetinghouse by the United Brethren, a group of breakaway Primitive Methodists led by Thomas Knighton. In 1840, Latter Day Saint missionary and apostle Wilford Woodruff preached among the United Brethren; ultimately all but one of the 600 members of the United Brethren were converted to Mormonism. After the conversions, the structure was deeded to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints by Knighton and John Benbow.

As a chapel of the early Latter Day Saint movement, the building was a centre of activity for the church in the Malvern Hills area. Several regional conferences of the church were held in the chapel, and Brigham Young, who at the time was President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, spoke there at least once. The chapel was sold by the church in 1842 to help fund the emigration of British Latter Day Saints to America."

Jeff.

Jefff,

Not being a Mormon, this whole scenario is completely new to me also. My direct ancestor is George Davis, a brother of Comforts and my research through this site has thrown up a few generations of agricultural labourers in the Newent, Pauntley, Bran Green and latterly Ross areas, which I have duly recorded. I had a "loose end" with Comfort and her children though, so eventually got round to trying to locate her.

Now I'm just curious to see what more I can find out between 1841 (last time she appeared on a census) and her departure to the USA in 1849.

Mike

Some of my ancestors born near Cliffords Mesne, Newent joined the Mormon trek to Salt Lake City in 1853. The two brothers William and Joseph Wadley were brought up as farm labourers but then went to work in Merthyr Tydfil in the coal mines. That is where they were converted to the Mormon faith. The Mormon prophets Brigham Young and Heber Kimball among others travelled extensively in England and Wales spreading their faith during that era.
The two brothers sailed from Liverpool to New Orleans then up the Mississippi to St Louis before making the overland trek.
There was (and still is, I believe) a perpetual fund which was used to aid the passage to USA in return for subsequent lifetime subscription to the fund by the recipient.
As another has written on this thread, the Chapel at Gadfield Elm was the very first of its kind for them when the United Brethren were absorbed in to the Mormon Church.
There are many stories and details about that time included in biographies that I have.
I am not a member of the LDS but admire their fortitude and determination in making those monumental journeys never to see their parents again.

Thanks for your notes. I'll post here if i can get any more information relative to the where and when the Davis's/Boulter's/Jervis's/Enniss's changed faith. There is an enormous amount of information once they get to the USA, but as i've mentioned before, there is a small window of ~5 years prior to their journey that i'd like to investigate.

I think those who went out to the USA after about 1847 had their sea passage paid for by the Mormon church but those who went out prior to that paid their own way across the Atlantic. If you put the words "Mormon Pioneers" into a search engine you will find a wealth of information about particular individuals and, no doubt, your family members. Likewise if you know where they settled there will be gravestones etc to see on the Internet. You probably already know but in case you don't if you look on Familysearch.com it will be likely that you will find a great deal of information about the ancestors and antecedents of your relatives who were Mormons which will be helpful to you, you might also find that descendants of your ancestor who are still Mormans may have done extensive family history research and downloaded family trees, stories, photographs etc onto the Internet which you will find through a simple search. I, like you, was very surprised to find Mormon links in my family (not so much on the FOD side as on another side of my family who I had presumed were staunch C of E!) as I had no idea about it beforehand, however this led me to find that hundreds of people made the journey to Utah, some of whom took years to work their way there (particularly if they funded themselves).Up until then I had assumed that most Mormans had been people already in America but I was wrong to assume this. I also found that people from Germany and Denmark converted to it in huge numbers too. You might find some of the family stayed in St. Louis for a while as this was where people tended to wait before joining a wagon train once they had crossed the Atlantic and travelled from New Orleans.
There is an article which I have been trying to get hold of which Charles Dickens wrote as the Victorian Government began to be concerned about the numbers leaving and why and they commissioned him to find out.If anyone knows where it can be obtained I'd appreciate it.

Is this the article ?

http://www.online-literature.com/dickens/uncommercial-traveller/22/

If so its hopefully available from these sellers, personally Amazon is always my first source of possible book sales etc.
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/d/charles-dickens/uncommercial-traveller.htm

Especially as you can sometimes learn usefull stuff prior to buying, if at all...this one let's you read some of it online.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Uncommercial-Traveller-Oxford-Illustrated-Dickens/dp/0192545213...

Thanks for the additional tips. As you mention, there is a welath of information on my extended family once they reached Salt Lake City, but I've parked that for now while trying to ascertain a little more about the two families just prior to their emigration

Mike