Today’s episode of Research Like a Pro is about our ancestor, Mariah (Brockhouse) Beddoes who left her parents in England with her husband and two young daughters to join with other Latter-day Saints in Utah Territory. Mariah was born in Willinghall, England, and her father was a locksmith. She married William Beddoes, a miner, and they eventually had a family of 13 children. The stories about Mariah’s departure from England are heart-breaking. She left her parents behind to never see them again.
Transcript
Nicole (1s):
This is Research Like a Pro episode 271 Mariah Brockhouse, English Emigrant and Pioneer Welcome to research Like a Pro a genealogy podcast about taking your research to the next level. Hosted by Nicole Dyer and Diana Elder accredited Genealogist professional Diana and Nicole are the mother daughter team at family Locket dot com and the authors of Research Like, a pro A Genealogist guide with Robin Wirthlin. They also co-authored the Companion Volume Research Like a Pro with D n A, join Diana and Nicole as they discuss how to stay organized, make progress in their research, and solve difficult cases.
Nicole (42s):
Let’s go. Today’s episode is sponsored by newspapers.com. Break down Genealogy brick walls with a subscription to the largest online newspaper archive. Hi everybody. Welcome to research Like a Pro Hi
Diana (57s):
Nicole How are you doing today?
Nicole (59s):
I had a fun weekend working on my kinship determination project, so I enjoy doing that How about you. Oh,
Diana (1m 5s):
That sounds fun. It’s always good to get back to your own research and projects, isn’t it? Well, I have been reading in my book a History of the Ozarks Volume two by Brooks Blevins. It’s the Conflicted Ozarks. And so it’s all about the years leading up to the Civil War. And then now I’m in the middle of the Civil War and I just finished the section where it was talking about the different battles and now the focus has switched to the women and children, those who are not fighting, which is what I’m so interested in because our ancestor, Nancy Briscoe was right there in the middle of that. And she was pretty young. She was just like maybe 18 or so when this all started, maybe even a little bit younger, and got married basically in the middle of the Civil War and her husband was fighting.
Diana (1m 56s):
So there were a few things that I highlighted, and this is a book that I do have my red pencil out. It’s very dense in details, it’s very readable, but it’s just got a lot of information. So I have my red pencil out highlighting some things and I thought I’d just read a couple sentences. This is titled The Home Front, the Section, and I thought it was just really Really well done. So he says thousands of Ozark residents served in wartime as union or Confederate soldiers home guards are irregulars, but most people in the region experience the war as civilians. So you know, isn’t that interesting that we think of these battles going on, but most people were just living there in the middle of it.
Diana (2m 40s):
So he goes on to say, for civilians in the paths of occupying armies, whether union or confederate, the war became at best an immediate and significant inconvenience, foraging details, requisitions, livestock, corn, hay, wagons, and other products. Soldiers pilfer gardens killed animals for food and used fence rails as firewood, you know. Then the next section goes on to talk all about some of the specifics and talking about how the women had to take on the duties of planting crops because these armies kept coming through, or these bands of gorilla Warfares kept coming through and taking everything. So they kept trying to make some food to feed their families.
Diana (3m 22s):
It was tough. Here’s one more quote to kind of finish this up. For women and children from poor or middling families and those living in places plagued by gorilla warfare, it was nothing less than hell on earth. An inescapable nightmare of crimes and injustices perpetrated by people who seem to have lost their ethical moorings, who seem to have forgotten their humanity and the churning maelstrom of hatred and despair So it. Pretty sad. Yeah, what that must have been like And it. The section ends up just discussing how so many people left. The worst part of it, they just left. They went other places because it had gotten so bad. So, it makes me, you know, understand why eventually Nancy Briscoe and her husband, Richard Frazier pulled up Roots from Missouri and went to Texas, you know, the Hay Confederates and the Confederacy had lost.
Diana (4m 10s):
So I am really interested in the next section of the book, which talks about reconstruction and what happens after the war is done, which I sure will give you more insight into their motivation to move west to Texas.
Nicole (4m 25s):
Right? Those are some great quotes. Well, for our announcements today, just a reminder that If, you want to learn how to use Airtable, we do have an Airtable quick reference P D F, that can teach you how to use it for a Genealogy research log that’s on our website. You can buy that. We have our Research Like, a Pro Webinar series. It’s a monthly case study And. it features the Research Like a Pro and Research Like a Pro with D n A process. So if you’re interested in that, you can purchase that on our website too. And you have access to the whole year of webinars, the recordings for months that have already passed, and you can have the option to attend on Zoom for future webinars for 2023.
Nicole (5m 7s):
And we are in our Research Like a Pro study group. We have one every fall. And then the next study group that you’ll want to be aware of and think about If you want to join is our Research Like a Pro with d n a study group that will begin in February. If you’d like to be a peer group leader for that, please apply on our website and you can submit a D n A research report or another piece of writing that uses D N A evidence kind of as your resume. Please join our newsletter. We send that out every Monday. It has Links to our new content and Links to any new products we’ve created or sales that we’re having.
Diana (5m 40s):
Lots of fun things going on. Well, we do have a listener spotlight today, and this was a comment left on our YouTube channel for Research Like a Pro episode 2 64, the Alfred Johnson project interview with Michelle Mickelson, part three. This listener, M C L Y M A N says, getting it written up is another story. And then the emoji with tears, the tears are real great podcast. So I had to chuckle at that because we can do all this great research, but sometimes when it is writing it up, we do feel like crying, tearing our hair out. And that’s when you go take a walk or you take a break and come back at to it the next day and then go back to work.
Diana (6m 23s):
So writing is such an important thing, but sometimes it’s kind of hard.
Nicole (6m 28s):
Yeah, it is hard. And with my K D P, the way I’m tackling that writing project, because it feels so big as I’m just working on gathering everything first and getting all my citations written in Airtable, then when I go to write it, everything will be ready So, it won’t be so slow and I can just like paste in the citations.
Diana (6m 45s):
That’s a Really good way to work. And as I’ve been writing these 52 ancestor blog posts, and we’re going to do another one of those today in the podcast, that’s exactly how I’ve tackled writing. I am going through my online trees, FamilySearch and ancestry, and creating the citations to sources if I don’t already have them in Airtable, just to get it back in my memory, you know what, what do we have on these people? And then once I’ve got that done, the writing just comes so much better. So I highly recommend getting all of your research into your research log and getting your citations written, and then it’s so much more fun to write.
Diana (7m 26s):
So with that, let’s get started on our subject. Who is Mariah Brockhouse? This is my second great-grandmother, and this is one of those Ancestors and one of her stories that I have always been fascinated with. And as we proceed and I tell the story and we talk about it, you’ll see why. So I grew up with this story that Mariah’s parents were so upset at her immigrating from England to Utah Territory, this would’ve been mid 18 hundreds. They were so upset that they took her little girl Selena, in hopes that it would prevent their journey. So when I was little, I just would think about what it would be like to have been this little girl and have your grandpa take you out and not want you to leave.
Diana (8m 15s):
And then you get on a boat and then you never see your grandparents again. How sad. And then Mariah, when I first had children, I thought, oh, that would’ve been so hard to leave your parents and know that you’re taking away their grandchildren. Now, as a grandmother myself, I sympathize with the grandmother, Phoebe, who is, you know, the wife of that grandfather, and thought how sad it would be to have your grandchildren taken across the ocean and you likely would not see them again. So the story involves three generations of my maternal Ancestors, Selena and her mother Mariah, and her mother Phoebe. And really my heart goes out to all of them.
Diana (8m 55s):
So because Mariah is the mother and the daughter of the story, she is in the center. So we’re going to focus on her. Well, Mariah was born to Enoch Brockhouse in Phoebe Lloyd Brockhouse on March 9th, 1842 in Willenhall establishment England. And she was the second of nine children, but she was the only daughter that survived childhood. Her three sisters as well as a brother, died very young. Her father Enoch was a locksmith. And when I researched Will and Hall, I found that it was known for manufacturing locks and keys and he would’ve been one of many locksmiths.
Diana (9m 35s):
The family was Church of England, like many in that era, in that place. And her parents had her baptized soon after her birth on March 14th, 1842, just five days after her birth in the St. Giles Chapel Willin Hall. And she likely attended the Church of England Services with her family. By 1860, she had become a dressmaker and lived on Bilson Street in Wil Hampton. And she had moved to a little bit larger city and probably needed to help out with the family And. it was there that she met her husband, William Beddoes. And they were married on August 13th at St. George’s Parish Church of 1860.
Diana (10m 17s):
And then they moved back to Willenhall where her parents lived and made their home. Well, William went to work in the coal mines and he had been working in the coal mines from the time he was age 12 because his father had died at age 10. So you know, we’ve, we’ve learned about the lives of the minors and how hard that was and how awful it was for these little children, these young boys to have to go down into the mines. So that’s William. Well, William Amiah started having their family and their first child was Phoebe named after her mother. Then they had another child named William. But both of those children died in April of 1864, just eight days apart.
Diana (10m 58s):
So we don’t really know exactly what took them. Perhaps it was an illness that was going around, but so sad. Mariah did go on to have 11 more children who all survived, with the exception of the youngest who was named Effie. My great-grandmother. Selena was born several months after the death of her oldest siblings on December 31st, 1864. And then she was followed by Matilda, who was born May 10th, 1867. So, you know, I can just imagine how excited Phoebe was to have two little granddaughters that survived Selena and Matilda. And because Phoebe had lost three of her daughters young and only had Mariah, she probably looked forward to seeing those little granddaughters grow up, get married, have families of their own.
Nicole (11m 49s):
Yes, I can imagine. And now a word from our sponsors. newspapers.com is your ultimate resource for Discovering your family’s history. Explore more than 800 million newspaper pages in their vast collection spanning three centuries. newspapers.com is your gateway to exploring the past with papers from the us, uk, Canada, Australia, and beyond. Trace your family’s journey and uncover the extraordinary tales of your Ancestors through newspaper stories, birth and marriage announcements, obituaries, photos, and much more. For listeners of today’s show, newspapers.com is extending a discount of 20% off on a publisher, extra subscription. Just use the code FamilyLocket at checkout.
Nicole (12m 30s):
Don’t miss out on this incredible opportunity. Well, poor Phoebe. It’s so sad to think about her losing her children and just having the one daughter and then her hopes were dashed. When Mariah and William announced their plan to go to America, they would be separated. Mariah and William had joined the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in 1865. And so they wanted to go join the rest of the Saints. In Utah Territory, one of Mariah’s daughters wrote about their experience preparing to go to Utah. She said Mother worked very hard and saved in every way by taking in borders, washing house, cleaning and sewing to keep the home up so that father’s wages might be saved for the expense of coming to America.
Nicole (13m 15s):
When it was made known a year later that they were going, father was very much surprised at the money that mother had saved. In addition to keeping up the house, when their plans were made known to their relatives and friends, they were surprised. Her parents, however, were much opposed and tried to persuade her not to go. They told her of many bad things they had heard of America. Her father took the oldest little girl and tried to hide her away thinking it would make them late. And so keep her from going. But mother’s mind was made up and her desire was firm to come to Zion for the gospel. She told her mother that no matter what she would suffer or have to endure, she would not torture her with the knowledge. She said many times, with all the suffering, she never complained nor wished herself back. They disposed of all they had at a very low price, selling what they could and giving the rest away.
Nicole (13m 58s):
Many valuable things which would have been useful, could have been put in their luggage. That is kind of heartrending to think about the separation of the family there. Selena, our ancestor, was that oldest little girl and her life history written by her sister. Eliza also records the same story. It says, when Selena was very young, preparations were made for the journey on the day they were to sale her grandparents being so grieved that they’re going, the grandfather took the little girl into the woods trying to prevent them from going. Her parents Discovering, the absence went in surge of her. She was found and there was no delay. Interesting, you know, to think about, did Selena remember this episode looking at her year of birth and when this happened, she would’ve been three and a half years old.
Nicole (14m 44s):
So she probably heard the story from her parents And. it probably made quite an impression on her that she did probably remember some of the fuss that ensued with her being found. And then the painful goodbyes And, it would be really hard to say goodbye to your grandparents.
Diana (14m 59s):
You know, I thought about that and I wonder if they even really told her what was going on. You know, you think of a little child and how much they really understand, but being on the boat for a long time and then the travel across the plains and then all the hardships once they got to Utah, you know, she obviously knew that her life had changed drastically. So Mariah and William with their two little girls, Selena and Matilda brave the Atlantic Ocean crossing with over 400 other Latter Day Saints on the ship named the Colorado, and they sell from Liverpool England and arrived in New York City on four July, 1868.
Diana (15m 40s):
So of course they were just traveling in steerage and they were pretty sick for the six week voyage. And then from New York, they traveled by train to North Platte, Nebraska then made the journey across the plains using an ox team. And Selena’s younger sister Eliza, wrote the following. Selena remembers being put with her sister Matilda in the wagon with their few belongings. Her father walked most of the way. Her mother walked behind holding to the wagon to be near the children. Their teamster’s name was Robert Davis. Her memory is very keen to things that happened on this journey. One of the scouts shot himself accidentally while walking down the tongue of the wagon.
Diana (16m 21s):
And he died. Her father was scouting ahead when he came upon a fresh camp loaded with provisions, the man was dead. Indians had scalped him and taken his team, leaving the wagon in provisions. The captain would not allow them to bother the things because others may suspect that they had killed him for the food. So that is interesting, isn’t it, that she remembered some very specific things. And you know, we think back into our childhood and what we remember and we do remember big things. It would be fun to do more research and learn more about that journey because there are others who have left journals about each of these, you know, journeys across the planes. So someday I would love to read more of those.
Diana (17m 3s):
Since Selena didn’t leave one herself,
Nicole (17m 6s):
That would’ve been quite the adventure. Well, when they reached Utah Territory, Mariah recorded some of the challenges that they face living on the frontier. She wrote a life history. The Baron desert of Utah would’ve been a little difficult to get used to after the lush green of her native England. And I think we can relate a little bit to that. Well, I can because growing up in Seattle where it was lush and green, it was kind of a shock moving to Utah when I was 16.
Diana (17m 35s):
Yes. I still remember all of children saying, this is where we’re going to live.
Nicole (17m 40s):
We said this
Diana (17m 40s):
Is the brown.
Nicole (17m 41s):
Yep. It was just a drought year, I think. I mean a lot of trees have been planted in Utah now, so it’s probably a little nicer looking in the developed areas. Yeah. Than it was at first
Diana (17m 51s):
It was a drought and the mountains were brown. Now this year they’re green ’cause there’s been so much rain. We’ve had Really, good water and good snow. But yeah, it’s very different from England, that’s for sure. We both lived in England and it’s quite different here in Utah.
Nicole (18m 7s):
Yeah. Study abroad in England felt like going home to Seattle, just that drizzle all the time.
Diana (18m 12s):
Yep. Yes.
Nicole (18m 14s):
While Mariah went on to have a family of 13 children, like we mentioned, and most of them lived to adulthood, William worked as a minor again and Mariah worked in the fields as well as the household tasks. Despite their hardships, they never regretted their decision to immigrate to America. Their daughter wrote about this, she said they used to sing together and were always asked to sing a song which they sang before leaving England. The meaning of the song was The Coming to America. And this song was written by Father Will Without Gang along with me. Bonnie Lasi, far across the Deep Blue Sea. Bonnie Las fearing neither wind nor Tide. I can love the by my side if thou will gang along with me. Bonnie Lassi, what makes the want to roam?
Nicole (18m 55s):
Bonnie Lat O to leave the happy home. Bonnie Lat does thy country displease or does sorrow? Absentee is thou can be at ease, Bonnie Gladio. But the journeys Long and Dre Bonnie Latia And my heart is full of fear. Bonnie Latia for the journeys over planes. Amidst the frost, the snow and rain, I shall perish with the pain. Bonnie Latia Nay. The journey’s not so bad. Bonnie Las. If thy heart does not retard Bonnie Lessio. So banish all thy fears for I will Troubles bear. So gang along with me, Bonnie Lessio, then I must leave my home. Bonnie Latia and like Abraham and Sarah Rome, Bonnie Latia take my children in my arms for to baffle many storms, leave my country in its charms.
Nicole (19m 43s):
Bonnie Gladio yonder Temple is rear and high. Bonnie Sio with its spire in the sky, Bonnie Sio. And our father says He’ll bless our hearts with humbleness if we will toward it. Press Bonnie Lessio, let’s prepare to make a start. Bonnie Gladio. I’ll agree with all my heart, Bonnie Lasso. And for future, let us say, when we kneel us down to pray, may God help us on our way. Bonnie Lasso.
Diana (20m 9s):
I love that poem, that song. And I would’ve loved to have heard the tune that they put that too. I know a, a family reunion a few years ago, your brother and sister, my two youngest children made up a tune and used the guitar to accompany themselves And. it was so fun to hear them sing that, you know, If, you were listening listeners, you could see that it was going back and forth between Bonnie Lattie and Bonnie Lassie. And so I imagine that William and Mariah would sing back and forth to each other. So such a neat little treasure to have handed down. Yeah. And I was always fascinated with that, that song as well.
Diana (20m 49s):
It
Nicole (20m 49s):
Is fun to think about it. And Bonnie Lassie and Bonnie Lattie, does that mean just like beautiful person?
Diana (20m 55s):
Yeah, I think it was just a term. It sounds very Scottish to me. And they really weren’t in Scotland, but they were, you know, more mid England. So closer to the Scottish border, I guess. I don’t know. I just think maybe it was some term that fit Really well in a song. Really? Yeah. I dunno. In doing more research and learning more about Mariah’s family left behind in England, the Histories do report that they were the first of their families to come to America. And that eventually some of the other family members immigrated. And so they would stay with them in their home in Utah until they found work and homes of their own.
Diana (21m 38s):
And I imagine that letters were sent back and forth and that Mariah’s mother, Phoebe did learn of her American grandchildren. But Phoebe and Enoch died in England and never saw Mariah and little Selena again, think of everything she sacrificed Mariah left all she knew and started a new life with William and two little girls. And I think the song shows exactly why she had the strong faith in God that would help her overcome all obstacles. And the histories really seemed to bear that out, that she never wavered even though things were really hard. So great lessons to learn from these Pioneer Ancestors. And I love that we’ve got stories and histories from a variety of people.
Diana (22m 21s):
You know, her daughter and her sister and maybe some of her own. Some of the histories don’t really tell who were the actual writers of them. We just have them. So I always like it when we can figure out who wrote them, but that’s not always possible. Well, thanks everyone for listening. it has been fun to talk about our Pioneer ancestor and we will talk to you next time.
Nicole (22m 47s):
Thank you for listening. We hope that something you heard today will help you make progress in your research. If you want to learn more, purchase our books, Research Like, a Pro and Research Like a Pro at D n a on amazon.com and other booksellers. You can also register for our online courses or study groups of the same names. Learn more at FamilyLocket dot com slash services. To share your progress and ask questions, join our private Facebook group by sending us your book receipt or joining our courses to get updates in your email inbox each Monday. Subscribe to our newsletter at FamilyLocket dot com slash newsletter. Please Subscribe rate and review our podcast. We read each review and are so thankful for them. We hope you’ll start now to Research Like a Pro.
Links
Mariah (Brockhouse) Beddoes (1842-1926), English Emigrant and Pioneer
Mariah’s Life History at FamilySearch
History of the Ozarks Vol. 2 by Brooks Blevins (affiliate link)
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