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Slater, Maria Varley - A History by Kay Ann Saxton
This history of Maria Slater Varley was written by Kay Ann Saxton of Evanston, Wyoming and submitted to the Daughters of Utah Pioneers by Rozella Hutchinson, 26 September 2013.
Maria Slater Varley is my great great great grandmother. My line is: father, Bert Moss Wheatley; father, Thomas Leslie Wheatley; father, Abraham Wheatley; parents , Thomas Wheatley, Sr. and Catherine Varley Wheatley; parents,Thomas and Maria Slater Varley.
I express a special thanks to Kay Ann Saxton for researching and writing this history. I have written a similar history of the immigration to Utah of Thomas and Catherine Wheatley. This history answers some of the questions among others that I had such as, “What happened to Thomas Varley,” and verifies that those on the Underwriter indeed took the train across the states from New York to Council Bluffs, and that Maria and the Varleys were not with the Wheatleys in the Milo Andrus wagon company continuing on across the plains to Utah.
I also express my thanks to Rozella for providing this history to the DUP.
A hardcopy of this history was acquired from the DUP July 2014 with the intent of placing it on newfamilyearch.com. Any mistakes in typing it or departures from the original are my own. Karl Heppler Wheatley, 7 August 2014.
Maria Slater was born 1 March 1814 in Greasley, Nottinghamshire, England to Williams Slater and Ann Brown. There were six children who survived to maturity in the family - Harriet, Bessie, Maria, William, Rebecca, and Eli. The Slater family was quite well to do. Her father was a shoemaker.
Early incidents in Maria’s life are not available. Maria married Thomas Varley, September 8, 1832 at Selston, England. Thomas was born April 21, 1811 the son of William Varley and Kathryn Limb, in Eastwood at North Wingfield Derbyshire, England. Thomas was a miner as the Varley men had been for at least four generations.
Maria and Thomas had five children: Catherine, born 10 February 1833; Martha, born 9 February 1835; William, born 11 January 1837; Abraham, born 24 May 1839; and Ann, born about 1841. Ann evidently died as an infant as most records only list them having four children.
Maria evidently was skilled in making lace. Her parents were very upset with her younger sister Rebecca who refused to marry the minister the family had selected for a husband. Rebecca was going with Thomas Saxton, a young miner at the time. Rebecca then began asking her parents if she could learn to make lace as her sister operated a lace curtain factory. Her parents finally agreed and she worked hard to learn the profession. The lace was exported to the United States and because of the quality sold for $.75 to a dollar a pair. This allowed Rebecca and Thomas to save enough money to get married and they moved to Clay Cross Derbyshire ,England so Thomas could work in the mines there.
The 1841 English Censes listed the Varley family as living on Mansfield Road in North Brinsley. Thomas Varley, age 30, (censes ages were rounded downward ), a coal miner, and his wife Maria, age 25; daughters Catherine, 8; Martha, 6; and sons William 4; and Abraham, 2. The 1851 English censes of North Wingfield listed the family as living at 10 Speedwell Road. Thomas Varley, age 41, coal miner, Maria, wife, age 38; Martha, daughter, age 15; William, son, age 14, coal miner; and Abraham, son, age 11, scholar. Daughter Catherine had married Thomas Wheatley on 26 May 1849, in Derbyshire England.
Maria and Rebecca’s parents, William and Ann Slater, had been tolerant to a degree with their daughters moving away and marrying miners but when they joined the Mormon Church, they were disowned by their family. Rebecca and Thomas Saxton joined the Church on 21 March 1850. Thomas Varley was baptized LDS on August 8, 1850, by Elder Joseph Cutts ... And the same record listed the baptismal dates for Maria and their four children.
By 1860, Maria had moved to Chesterfield in Derbyshire with her two sons, William and Abraham. She and her son William, along with William’s wife, Mary Ellen MacDuff, applied for a Church Emigration Certificate. William had married Mary Ellen on 24 February 1861. Maria’s husband is not listed as moving and records do not indicate what happened between Thomas and Maria, but they seem to have lived separate lives from this point on. Perhaps Thomas stayed working so his family would have the funds to immigrate to America and he planned to come later or they had divorced. Records do not tell us what happened. Daughter Martha had married Michael Wheatley on 24 February 1851 and started her own household. Their son Abraham died 9 December 1860.
On Tuesday, 23 April 1861, the clipper ship Underwriter sailed from Liverpool, with 624 Saints, under the presidency of Milo Andrus, Homer Duncan and Charles William Penrose. In a story published in the Deseret Evening News, Penrose is quoted, “ I started from Liverpool and assisting in charge of a company of 620 Latter-day Saints and we were 30 days on the sea... We had some very tempestuous times and at others very joyful occasions, but we arrived, most of us, in safety at New York, after 30 days in an old sailing tub called the Underwriter.
Maria, son William and his wife, and daughter Catherine and her family immigrated to America at this time. Passengers listed on the ship’s manifest were Maria Varley 1814, Mary Ellen Varley 18, William Varley 1837, Catherine Wheatley 1834, Thomas Wheatley 1831, Maria Wheatley 1851, Thomas Wheatley 1854, Emma Wheatley 1856, John Wheatley 1857.
They were 30 days on the water before reaching land. The officers on the ship were very cruel to the sailors and would lash them. The women could not stand to see this, so they went to see the captain and begged him to intercept, but he told them that was the custom and the only way the sailors could be controlled. While on the ocean the food consisted mainly of salt pork, very salty dry crackers and split peas. They arrived in New York City 22 May 1861.
They then traveled nine days by railroad and two days up the Missouri River. At Omaha they bought a yoke of oxen and a wagon each and provisions for the trip to the West. Coming through the states there was a lot of excitement as the government was enlisting men for the Army as the Civil War was imminent. Food was cheap: eggs were three cents a dozen and “we enjoyed the different food very much after faring so poorly on the boat. We saw many Indians and Buffalo, but we were never molested by them.” Some of the children walked most of the way to the Valley. They arrived in Salt Lake City on 12 September 1861. They crossed the plains by ox team in the William S Warren wagon company.
The Varley family settled in Bountiful, Utah. They built log cabins near where the Bountiful Tabernacle now stands. They had boxes for tables and sawed logs for chairs. That first winter was hard: they took some of their best stuff to buy hay for their livestock. In 1863, Maria’s daughter Catherine, (husband Thomas Wheatley and their family) left for Dayton, Nevada with a company of Saints to settle there. Maria evidently stayed with her son William and his family in Bountiful.
Maria’s first husband Thomas Varley died on 9 May 1867 at the age of 57 still living in Chesterfield Derbyshire England.
Maria Slater Varley had three husbands after she came to Utah. Her second husband was Alexander Richard Jackson. They were married on 22 February 1864 in Salt Lake City. The groom was born on 18 June 1810 in London, England and the bride was born on 1 March 1814 in Nottinghamshire, England. Maria’s husband Alexander Jackson, age 50, died 9 July 1865 in Salt Lake City, of a liver complaint. Some records give her husband’s name as Clarence Richard Jackson, but no information under that name is found.
Her third marriage was to John Parkin Sr. and she was his second wife, married in polygamy. Maria Slater and John Parkin were married 9 February 1867 in Salt Lake City. John Parkin was born 12 April 1821 in Loscoe, Heanor, Derbyshire, England. John was the first of his family to accept the gospel and was baptized in 1850, and he literally fought for the right to hear the gospel. He was a pugilist by nature and build, although not professionally. He and his family emigrated to America in 1863 and arrived in the Valley that fall. He settled in Bountiful and kept a small store. He died 4 November 1885 in Bountiful, Davis, Utah.
Maria’s fourth husband was William Chunn. William is listed as born in Chesterfield England in 1810 and married to Maria Slater, but no other information is found.
Maria’s daughter Martha and her husband Michael Wheatley and her grandson Heber Kimball Wheatley immigrated to America in 1869. Maria’s sister Rebecca Slater Saxton and her husband, Thomas and three daughters, Emma, Martha, and Hannah, also immigrated at this time. They were all passengers on the ship Minnesota leaving Liverpool on 25 August 1869 and arriving in New York 6 September 1869. There were 454 LDS immigrants on the ship. When they arrived in New York, they got on a train to come to Utah, being some of the first pioneers to make the journey by train. They did spend two days traveling by horse and wagon outside of Council Bluffs as the railroad tracks had been washed out, but they then again boarded a train for the remainder of the journey. They arrived in Ogden, Utah, that fall. They settled in Honeyville, Box Elder, Utah, where they started farming.
Maria’s other daughter, Catherine (Wheatley) and her family, returned from Nevada after nine years and they also settled in Honeyville. Maria evidently moved to that area to be by her daughters. Maria Slater Varley died 23 October 1898 in Honeyville, Box Elder, Utah. She was 84 years of age. She is buried in the Call’s Fort cemetery, Honeyville, Utah. Although she was married three times after her marriage to Thomas Varley she was buried under the name Varley.
| Owner of original | Ann Saxton |
| Linked to | Maria SLATER |
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