John Chatterley

John Chatterley, a member of the first group of colonizers to Cedar City was born in Salford, a suburb of Manchester, England, July 4, 1835, the son of Joseph and Nancy Morton Chatterly. He had a brother Morton and two sisters, Ann and Charlotte. His father was a well-to-do merchant of the middle class and was also a master mechanic and wheelwright. They had a beautiful home and were comfortably located at the time they joined the LDS Church and made the decision to come to Utah. They set sail from Liverpool on the 6th of September, 1856, on the ship North Atlantic commanded by Captain Brown with 350 other saints. After eight weeks of rough sailing they arrived in New Orleans. They left St. Louis in April, 1851, and arrived in Salt Lake in September.

The family had been in Salt Lake a short time when they, with several other families, were called to go to Iron County to assist in the manufacture of iron. They wended their way to Southern Utah, staying in Parowan a few days to rest. They arrived on Coal Creek the evening of November 11, 1851.

The colonizers set to work building a fort to protect themselves from the Indians. That winter was open and a field of 400 acres surveyed and plotted for farming, fences were built and ditches were dug. During the first year or two the necessities of life were pretty short, but the people were happy and not complaining. When clothing got short they bought buckskin from the Indians and made trousers, shirts and shoes. They went barefooted a lot. John told how he would arrive at the dance hall meeting place, he would put them on and felt quite dressed up.

When the iron works were started in the summer of 1852, he worked as furnace tender and a blacksmith helper for many months. He married Sarah Whittaker on March 12, 1862 and they had nine children. They were both gifted in music and many social gatherings were held in their home. In 1864 he in the company with Henry Leighton, Christian Mackelprang, Timothy Adams, Andrew Corry and others went back to the states as far as Iowa with ox teams and brought supplies to meet companies of immigrants who were coming to Utah. He also worked as a missionary among the Indians becoming a peace maker for them.

He had a genial, through unassuming disposition and entertained with comic songs and recitations. Nancy wrote, “we will remember when he was leader of the old brass band. The boys would gather at the old home on Main Street about 15 or so in number, each with a shiny horn, some large and some small, and would proceed to make music so loud and grand that I used to run away to the neighbors and sty until their practice was over.”

He held many positions of trust in a civic capacity being mayor one term, city recorder one term, justice of the peace, postmaster 11 years, notary public for 27 years, during which time he did hundreds of hours of work free gratis. He was instrumental in helping many of the Indian War Veterans get their pensions from the government. In his later life he came to be a favorite among the children of the town because of his pleasant greetings and the habit he had of handing a piece of hard tack candy to every youngster he met.

He died May 2, 1922, and was buried in the Cedar City Cemetery May 5, 1922. He was a kind and loving husband and father. Permission to print history granted by Zoella Palmer Benson, a grand daughter