Simon Eugene Dalton and family

​

 

Simon Eugene Dalton was born in 1852 in Centerville, Utah - north of Bountiful. His oldest brother was born in Nauvoo, Illinois in 1846; the next baby was on the plains of Iowa as they moved West in 1848; Miriam was born in Salt Lake in 1850; then Simon; then 5 younger brothers.

 

     His father, Simon Cooker Dalton, was a farmer and part of a larger family that made a move from Pennsylvania to Michigan in 1835 and then to Nauvoo. His mother, Elnora Lucretia Warner Dalton, was born in New York state.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Photo - about 1891 - Simon Eugene Dalton and wife Jane Elizabeth Huntington (Dalton), with children Jennie, Hannah Elnora Dalton (my grandmother, who married Marion F. Miner), and either Olive or Hilda. Olive died in 1890, so this is probably Hilda (or both of them would have been in the photo...)]

 

 [Photo - about 1879 - Jane Elizabeth Dalton with her dau Ella - my Grandma Ella!]

 

   Great-grandpa Simon Dalton (for Eliza Knowles, this would be great-great-great-grandpa Dalton, of course) was born in Utah in 1852 - the very first pioneers to the Salt Lake Valley came in 1847, just 5 years earlier - his parents arrived in 1849 [Simon Cooker Dalton, 1806-1885 and Elnora Lucretia Warner Dalton, 1822-1865]. Simon was the 4th of 10 children of his parents. His mother died when he was 13, in childbirth. The family was larger than it appears - there were not only the 6 surviving brothers and sisters, but then there were his mother's two children by her first marriage, and his father's five children from his first marriage - both of those marriages ending primarily because of their adoption of the Mormon religion in the early 1840s... and then there were two children with his father's plural wife Laura... and three with his plural wife Mary Elizabeth. 

 

 

     Yes, between 1826 and 1858, his parents helped populate the world by contributing 22 children between them. Several of the babies died - Carlos, Miriam, Ianthus, and the final unnamed baby that contributed to his mother's death at age 43, but Simon lived till he was 81. He died basically of a blot clot; he also had gangrene in one foot. (Is that more than you wanted to know???)

 

 

     Simon's two uncles - his father's brothers - also came to the Salt Lake Valley and had large families. It's possible you are somehow related to almost every Utah or Idaho Dalton you meet...

 

 

     They were mostly farmers, but he also did some freight hauling to Nevada and back - once he was gone for two years when Ella was small.  I found information recently that he was in business with his brother John Melvin Dalton, who was married to one of the Solomon and Lydia Chase girls - as was Moroni Miner, who married her sister Nancy.

​

[Photo - about 1916 - Grandpa Simon E. Dalton with children and grandchildren. l to r: Jenny, Gene, Nancy, Ella, Emma?, Arlean, Hilda, Jane. On Grandpa's lap is little Marian Miner - my mother!]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    Simon and Jane lived in Springville after they married. All the children were born there and probably all are buried there. The Springville cemeteries are full of our old dead relatives!

 

 

   Grandma Hannah E. "Ella" Dalton Miner was the oldest child of Simon and Jane. All her life she had to work in the fields along side her dad, especially after he was injured - during the time Med & Ella lived with the Daltons just after their marriage, Simon cut his leg badly - from a description written by Marian Miner Wright: "...Med and Father Dalton rented ground and farmed together. During this time, Father Dalton got his leg cut seriously - a team ran away with a harrow and cut his upper thigh badly. Hilda nearly fainted and left Ella to care for it, which was very difficult. She had to untangle the equipment, unhook the horses and drive them home a mile; all the time he was bleeding heavily. He never fully recovered."

 

 

     Simon and Jane's seven children were: Ella, born in 1877; Jennie, born in 1883; Olive, born in 1886, but died at 4 yrs.; Hilda, born in 1891; Simon E. "Dr. Gene", born in 1893; Emma, born in 1897 and Oliver, born in 1900 - 23 years after Ella. "Dr. Gene" (which is how everyone refers to him) was always Ella's favorite - he practiced medicine in Atlantic City, NJ.

 

 

     Simon was in the first Bishopric of the old 2nd Ward in Springville for years and years and years - in those days, it was a life calling, practically.