Michael Wheatley

According to a biography for Michael Wheatley found on Family Search.org he was the son of John Wheatley and Sarah Moore, born August 19, 1935, at Dale Abby, Derbyshire, England. His father, John, was born August 18th, 1806. Sarah Moore Wheatley was born July 16, 1798. The Wheatleys were real coal miners, and had been for generations. John Wheatley worked underground or in the coal pits for 60 years. Michael also worked in the coal pits. His brother Thomas started working there when he was 6 years old and worked there for 25 years before coming to America. Michael's brother, Richard, was killed in the Birchil pit by a blast October 12, 1852, at the age of 24. They all had many narrow escapes from losing their lives, and when they left England their backs were scarred from falling coal.

Michael had four brothers and two sisters, two of them died at an early age. Three of the children, 2 boys and one girl were converted wit their marriage partners to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Michael married Martha Ann Varley February 24, 1851. On April 19, 1861, Michael and his wife, Martha, his brother Thomas Wheatley Sr., and wife Catherine Varley and a sister and her husband (Mary and George Whitworth) and their children, sailed from Liverpool, England, on a sailing vessel called "The Underwriter." This was the same ship that President Charles W. Penrose came to America on in the Milo Andrews Company.

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 were revolted at the sight of this, so they went to the Captain and begged him to intercept, but he told them that was their custom and the only way that the sailors could be controlled. While on the ocean the food consisted mainly of salt pork, very salty dry crackers and split pea soup.

There were 624 saints under the presidency of Milo Andrews, Homer Duncan and Charles W. Penrose, coming to America. They arrived at New York City, May 22, 1861. From there they sailed to New Orleans, at the mouth of the Mississippi River. They traveled up the river to Florence, Nebraska. While there Michael's sister, Mary, gave birth to a baby girl, and they named her Florence after the city, which is now just outside of Omaha. She was born on the banks of the Mississippi River in a tent. They remained there long enough for Mary to get her strength. While there the men took a walk along the river bank, and they came upon a camp of Indians. They (the white men) made a hasty retreat, as they had heard of Indians in America, but that was the first they had ever seen one. They were frightened and hurried to their tent.

At Omaha the bought a yoke of oxen for each man and a wagon each and other provisions for the trip to he west. After a few days journey on the plains some of the oxen died and they had to change the new wagons for old ones and cows to pull the wagons.

Coming through the states they were enlisting men for the Army that being the year the civil War began and all was excitement. Food was surely cheap. Eggs were but 3 cents a dozen and we enjoyed the different food very much after faring so poorly on the boat.

Part of the children walked most of the way to the valley. We say many Indians and buffalo, but we were never molested by them. We arrived at Salt Lake City, September 12, 1861.

The Wheatley's all settled in Bountiful, where Thomas' wife Catherine gave birth to a baby boy named Abraham, October 16, 1861. The first winter was hard. They took some of their best clothes to buy hay for the livestock. They built log cabins near where the Bountiful Tabernacle stands. They had boxes for tables and sawed logs for chairs.

In 1863 the oldest boy Thomas and his family left for Dayton, Nevada, with a company of Saints, and Michael's sister, Mary Whitworth, and family and Michael and family left for Honeyville, Box Elder County, Utah, where they bought farms. After nine years, Brother Thomas returned from Nevada and bought a farm nearby in Honeyville and that's where they raised their families and prospered very well.

Michael and Martha Ann had 2 children both born in England. The first was a boy, Heber, and the 2nd a girl, Catherine, but she died the same year she was born in 1867. Michael died December 28, 1916, at Honeyville, Utah.

Heber taught school in Box Elder County towns and married Isabelle Nish from Plymouth, Utah, while teaching school there. This marriage was blessed with nine children. They later lived on a farm in Clarkston, Utah.

Heber and Isabelle later speparated and Heber married Sarah Alice Nye of Honeyville. Two children were born of this marriage, Vera, who died at the age of 21, and Athalia who now resides in Ogden, Utah.

Comments: The history of Michael Wheatley has some gross errors. Thomas Sr.'s brother Michael Wheatley, born in about 1832 or 1834, and his wife Martha Varley, born about 1835, was the daughter of Maria Varley and Catherine's sister, and son Heber, born in 1862, immigrated to Utah in 1869 aboard the ship Minnesota. See: http://lib.byu.edu/mormonmigration/.

Maria Varley's sister Rebecca Slater Saxton and her husband, Thomas, and three daughters, Emma, Martha, and Hannah, were also passengers on the ship. The Minnesota left Liverpool on August 25, 1869, arriving in New York on September 6, 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 almost entirely by rail. They settled in Honeyville, Box Elder, Utah, where they started farming. (Saxon, Kay Ann, Maria Slater Varley, Daughters of Utah Pioneers, Salt Lake City, Utah, 2013, page 3. Karl Wheatley.