The Family of William Ashton

William Ashton and his wife Sarah Ann Barlow Ashton must have had some second thoughts as the approached the handcart trek.  Sarah Ann was pregnant with their sixth child.  Their other children were all girls.  Betsy the oldest, about eleven, the second Esther had passed away as an infant, then followed Sarah, Mary and Elizabeth.
Tragedy would strike the family again, while in Boston harbor, little Elizabeth would succumb to the measles.  This only allowed the family a few hours to grieve before they had to continue their journey. Their next leg was by wagon to the train station to  take them North to Albany where they would cross the Hudson River on the journey to Iowa.
This family's tragedy was not over.  Shortly after the pioneers had regrouped at Florence Nebraska and were traveling close to Winter Quarters, Sarah Ann would go into labor, and deliver another baby girl.  However she would pass away in child birth.  William was left with four girls, one of them a baby.  Of course wet nurses from the company would help tend the baby, keeping her alive for two weeks.  Baby Sarah Ann would be buried along the plains.
When the company reached Fort Laramie, rations were being reduced to minimal amounts of food.  There would be a struggle to get over the mountains and into Salt Lake.  William Ashton left the company at Fort Laramie, leaving his three daughters to the care of others.   He was able to use his signing bonus to support his girls, but he left them on the plains to carry on alone.
The oldest daughter, Betsy, must have felt a great responsibility.  When the company reached the last crossing of the Platte, near present day Casper Wyoming, Betsy froze her feet.  She would succumb afterwards, someplace between Red Buttes and Martin's Cove.  Her death was not recorded.  The two children Sarah, seven and Mary five were cared for by others, and they actually survived and made it to Salt Lake.  Mary is my great great grandmother.  She would die in child birth some years later, giving birth to her only son, William Haston Wardle.  However hers is a great posterity, as that son was the father of eleven.
For more details and a view of a picture entitled orphans depicting Mary and Sarah after Betsy's death.
http://www.tellmystorytoo.com/fine-arts/julie-rogers/orphans

Your Heart Will Burn: Act 2 Scene 10: Martin's Cove

https://www.youtube.com/my_videos_edit?video_id=UatDF_CLXVg&ns=1&feature=mhsn

Your Heart Will Burn: Act Two Scene Seven: Red Buttes

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIewLpTYe1g
This scene talks about the effects of the last crossing.  It presents Robert McBride singing "Oh Zion, When I think of Thee."  His sons record he sang this song the day before he passed away.  I discovered after we did the play that this song was set to the music of "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief."
The entire song goes like this, although there is no record if Robert sang the entire song.

O Zion, when I think of thee,
I long for pinions like the dove,
And mourn to think that I should be
So distant from the land I love.

A captive exile, far from home.
For Zion's sacred walls I sigh,
With ransomed kindred there to come,
And see Messiah eye to eye.

 

While here, I walk on hostile ground;
The few that I can call my friends
Are, like myself, in fetters bound,
And weariness our steps attends.

But yet we hope to see the day
When Zion's children shall return,
When all our grief shall flee away,
And we again no more shall mourn.

The thought that such a day will come,
Makes e'en the exile's portion sweet;
Though now we wander far from home,
In Zion soon we all shall meet.

Our family lore says that Betsy froze her feet at the last crossing, which lead to her death a short time later. The removal of flesh with a knife and without anesthesia would have been common.  Ephraim Hanks later documented performing many such surgeries.

Your Heart Will Burn, Act Two Sene Eight

This is a historical reenactment of the Martin Handcart Company.  In this scene the pioneers meet the advance party of rescuers sent from Salt Lake.  This relates the true story of Elizabeth Jackson being visited by her husband who had passed away more than a week before.  He reassured her that help would find them. 
The relationship between Thomas Bailey and Betsy is fictional as we do not have any of what family took in the girls after their father left the company. 
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wk3CHdqbBow

Martin Handcart Company: The Deaths of Elizabeth, Betsy, Baby Sarah and Sarah Ann Barlow Ashton; 1856 Martin Handcart Company

The Book, "Our Pioneer Heritage" published by Daughters of the Utah Pioneers in 1973 and compiled by Kate Carter, reports on the death of Betsey.  It includes a sentence about the death of Elizabeth Ashton.  "While at sea the youngest sister, Elizabeth Ann died and was buried near Cuba."  (volume 16 p.445) This is in conflict with the historical journal made of the voyage, which was kept by John Jaques, and published in 1978 as part of "Life History and Writings of John Jaques" put together by his granddaughter Stella Jaques Bell and published by Ricks College Press.  It reports that the Horizon traveled the northern route, close to Nova Scotia, not Cuba.  It records the death of Elizabeth in this fashion.  "Wed. 2: [July] Up at 4.  Remaining luggage taken to the R.R. depot b 9 a.m.  Left Boston for Albany about 11 1/2.  Child died before we left the ship, Brother Ashton's, about nine years old, about 9 a.m." (Bell, p 105) Again we know that this record is not completely accurate.  Elizabeth was listed as two years old on the ship roster.  However the circumstances of this loss are particularly devastating.  The family lost its youngest member, and did not have time or circumstance to provide a proper burial, or to adequately say goodbye.  On the journey west, often you left loved ones behind with no hope of seeing their grave site again.  The family only had a couple of hours after Elizabeth's death, to be at the train station.
These records both record the deaths of Betsy's mother, and new born baby sister.  "She lost her mother by death in child-birth near Florence, Nebraska.  The infant also died and was buried with his mother."  (DUP p 445)  According to the Bell history, Sarah Barlow Ashton did passed away at Cutler's Park, one day past Florence Nebraska shortly after child-birth.  However the baby lived for two weeks, before also passing away.  John Jaques apparently does not document this passing.  His own wife was also having a baby at this time.  Bell inserts the writings of Patience Rosza, John Jaques' sister-in-law who mentions the passing of Sarah Ashton.  "My sister got through her confinement quite well, but another poor Sister Ashton died there that night as soon as her child was born, leaving the new born babe and three children and her husband." (Bell p 129)  This was August 26.
John Jaques does record in the official history the death of the new born baby Sarah Ann Ashton. "Thurs. [September] 11: Started in the morning and traveled about 9 miles on a dry creek, though so dry as not to be running.  Here were the graves of two men and child, belonging to Col. A.W. Babbitt's wagons, killed on August 25th b the Cheyenne Indians.... Here we buried the infant of the late Sister Ashton who died of childbirth at Cutler's Park the night of August 26th."  (Bell p 135)  The summary of the deaths indicates the baby was "buried by Wilson baby and two teamsters of Colonel Babbitt, 9 miles west of Prairie Creek.
The DUP record says this about William Ashton dropping out of the company.  "In a few days her father became discouraged and left Betsey, her sisters, Sarah and Mary with the company, and returned to New York, later to England." (DUP p 445)
The record of John Jaques does not document William Ashton leaving the company.  However through the research of Donna Olsen, finding the enlistment records of William Ashton, we know he enlisted at Fort Laramie and served five years in the infantry.
The threee girls were left in the care of others of the handcart company.  "The company was good to these three little girls.  Betse with her sisters walked day after day.  They suffered greatly from food shortage and lack of warm clothes as the had planned to reach Utah before the cold and storms came in the fall." (DUP p 445)
The diary of John Jaques does not record anything after the last crossing of the Platte, and therefore does not document Betsey's death.  The DUP record documents it in this manner.  "Betsey was never to see Utah as she became ill from lack of food and while the company was camped by the North Platte River on the plains of Wyoming, she froze to death."  (DUP p 445) The handcart company was camped at Red Buttes, which was the last camp before leaving the North Platte River for over a week.  It was there that the rescuers found them, and got them moving again, towards wagons waiting at Devil's Gate.

Mary Ashton Wardle

Sarah Ashton Beckstead on left

Betsey's sisters Sarah and Mary survived the Journey.  Mary is my great-great grandmother.