Elizabeth Horne

Biographical Sketch

Excerpt from "The Salt Lake City 14th Ward Album Quilt, 1857", by Carol Holindrake Nielson

The name of Joseph Horne’s third wife Elizabeth Ashford Thimbleby Horne is preserved in the many Horne annals, but with minimal story. She was born May 11, 1810 in Cambridge, England, the place where she married Bonfield Thimbleby November 11, 1828.

But in 1852 when she immigrated to American on the ship Ellen Maria, she was accompanied only by her son Robert, and Mary Ann Thimbleby, a daughter. Bonfield immigrated three years later. He may have sent his family on ahead, as did so many financially strapped immigrants. Or, he may have declined the Mormon’s message that had spurred the rest of the family’s move—causing a rift between the couple. The latter seems more probable since what is known of Elizabeth in Utah begins not with her Thimbleby family, but with the Horne family.

She and Joseph Horne were wed November 30, 1856, the same day that he also married Mary Park Shepherd. Elizabeth was forty-three, just a few months younger than Joseph, and they had no children. Her quilt block ascertains her residency within the boundaries of the Fourteenth Ward suggesting she dwelt in the same home with Mary Isabella and Mary Park.

The same year of her marriage to Joseph Horne, Elizabeth’s first husband Bonfield arrived. Unfortunately, his life and times in Utah is abbreviated to his headstone in the southern Utah settlement of Beaver where he was buried three years later: Bonfield Thimbleby, born Cambridgeshire, England, August 20, 1806; Died January 9, 1858.

The very month of Bonfield’s death, Elizabeth passed near his grave on a journey with her husband to the Virgin River in southern Utah. Joseph, at Brigham Young’s request, was sent to that warm climate as the steward of fourteen other men—all called to propagate cotton. Elizabeth was the wife who accompanied him.

This early trip south spared Elizabeth and Joseph the month long journey to Parowan that Mary Isabella, Mary Park and the children would undertake a few months later to escape the enclave of the Utah War. Joseph met the other wives and their families in Parowan, a town roughly forty miles north of the cotton mission where he and his older sons built a two-roomed shanty. This was a temporary home where the women and children could while away the outcome of the Salt Lake crisis. As for Elizabeth, she “moved to Beaver and located with her son, Robert Thimbleby, who resided there.

Elizabeth was one of the first in the family to return to Salt Lake later that year. She traveled north with Joseph’s son, Joseph S., and managed the housekeeping for Henry, another son, who managed the farm until the entire family arrived in the fall.

Elizabeth was still housekeeping and cooking for her husband’s crew the next year when she accompanied him the second time to the cotton mission. On that trip there is one mention of Elizabeth by name in her husband’s journal. On leaving Salt Lake, Joseph wrote “bid my family good by this morning except my wife Elisabeth [sic] who goes with me.” Nine days later, the couple were again as far south as Beaver, Utah, where they spent the day with Battersons F. Thimbley [sic]. The obscure name was transcribed from Joseph’s handwriting the best way possible. But despite possible inaccuracy, the surname indicates another visit to Elizabeth’s family.

Elizabeth and Joseph once again returned to Salt Lake City late in 1859. But she did not stay. She returned to Beaver, a place where her son Robert Bonfield Thimbleby and his family, and possibly a brother, Robert Ashford, were the draw. There would be another. Beaver became the stronghold in Utah of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, an offshoot of the original church. One of Joseph Horne’s sons cryptically wrote: “She apostatized, left the Church and our family about the year 1860.

She left the Mormon Church, but not her religious convictions. Without the Horne name, Elizabeth was baptized into the Reorganized Church in 1870. After her death in Beaver on November 14, 1894 that church eulogized her as one who “lived a Saint, and died in full faith of a joyful resurrection.” She was eighty-two. She was buried in Beaver, near Bonfield. Elizabeth remains part of Latter-day Saint history by virtue of her Relief Society membership. The red and white checked fabric of her Rose of Sharon block is rare on the quilt. The block’s boldness of color and design garnered its placement—and subsequent destruction— midpoint on the quilt. Beneath her bold signature she wrote 14th Ward, the name of the place where she was a Mormon.

Immigration

Elizabeth along with her son and daughter were among the passengers of the Ellen Maria that departed Liverpool on 17 Jan 1853 and arrived in New Orleans 6 Mar 1853.

They traveled to the Salt Lake valley with Cyrus Wheelock Company arriving 6 October 1853.

The following is an excerpt from the Journal of Elizabeth Fovargue Smith:

I must here say I wrote at every landing place to my parents. At Keokuk I wrote several times. We met several of my old friends at this place. Brother and Sister Wayman met us there. There we met Mrs. Thimbleby and her son and daughter. They was on their way to the Valley. Her daughter was very sick. I went to see her. She was pleased to see me and asked me a great many questions about my husband. She said she would like to see him. She was quite amused at the account I gave her concerning my courtship and marriage and asked me a hundred questions. Her poor girl said, "I don't want to go to the Valley."
I said, "Not want to go and see you Henry?"
She said, "No, I couldn't think of having him for fear he would take more wives than me." She bid me goodbye. She died while we were camping at Keokuk with what is termed a broken heart. The young man she was to have been married to came from Doddington a good, kind person, Henery [Henry] Garner by name. He soon found another woman. They left the Valley and went to California.

Sources:

• Mormon Migration
• Mormon Pioneer Overland Trail
• Journal of Elizabeth Fovargue Smith
• Reference: MyHeritage Family Trees - SmartCopy: Jun 16 2019, 1:02:46 UTC