Joseph Chatterley Kay's First Family

Contributed By Larry K Coleman · 2013-06-29 04:00:04 GMT+0000 (UTC) · 0 Comments
A Story to Explain the Two Families of Joseph Chatterley Kay Written by Larry K. Coleman ([email protected])He indicates much more material is available for a complete history June 28, 2013.The photograph is of Joseph Chatterley Kay and his living children he had with his first and now deceased wife, Martha Jane Wilson. Standing on the left is Joseph C. Kay with his only living son, Joseph William Kay standing next to him. His two daughters are seated with Mary Ellen Kay on the left and the youngest child, Sarah Ann Kay is seated next to her. There had been one more son, John Chatterley Kay, born as the second child, that passed away when he was about five-and-a-half years old as will be mentioned later. The stories handed down through the generations of this "First Family," indicate that Martha Jane was born 17 October 1846 in Mosquito Creek, Pottawattamie, Iowa while her parents were in the process of crossing the plains. The family was still in Iowa when the 1850 United States Census was conducted. Her father is listed in the Census as Elijah Wilson and her mother was listed as "Martha Kelly Lynch. She had previously been married to Daniel Lynch. Joseph and Martha Jane were married on the 20th of November 1863 in Logan, Utah. They had four children, Joseph William; John Chatterley; Mary Ellen; and Sarah Ann. When Mary Ellen was one year and fifteen days old, Joseph married a second wife, Margaret Ann Walker, in polygamy on 15 February 1869 in the Salt Lake Endowment House. Both wives, Martha Jane, and Margaret received their endowments and were "sealed" to Joseph on that same day. When the 1870 U.S. Federal Census was taken on 18 July 1870 in Paradise, Cache, Utah, both Martha and Margaret were living in the same household along with Martha Jane's four children and their husband, Joseph.After living in polygamy for a year or so -- it has been passed down in the "first family" -- Martha Jane became disenchanted with the marital system they had committed and tried to live – especially, it is said, with having "two women in the house." Consequently, Martha Jane and Joseph either just separated or were divorced about a year after their last child, Sarah Ann was born on Jan 10, 1871. As can be noted, this is exactly the same time Joseph and Margaret's first child, Jessie, was born on 28 February 1872 in Willard, Box Elder County, Utah. The 1870 Census indicates that Margaret's mother was living in Box Elder County, so perhaps Joseph took Margaret home to her mother's when Margaret's child was to be born in 1872. Margaret's next two children were born back in Paradise, Cache County, Utah. The rest of their children were born in Arizona. The way it appears to me from the stories I've heard as well as the documents I've found, I suspect that when Joseph took Margaret to her mother's house for the approaching birth, Martha Jane took her three living children and went to her mothers home. It's not clear where Martha Jane's mother, Martha Kelly Lynch Wilson, was living for sure when Martha Jane went to live with her. In the 1870 Census, Martha Kelly Wilson, along with her last two sons, are living in the household of her daughter Harriet Craighead and her family. In 1873 when Martha Jane died, they were living in the community of Swan Lake near Oxford, Idaho where the children attended school a few miles from their home. I understand Oxford was the largest city in Idaho at one time, but there is hardly anything there, now.After the separation of Joseph and Martha Jane, and in the first week of June 1872 when John was about 5 ½ years old, a granddaughter of Martha Jane (Phemia Coleman McAffee) writes in a history she wrote that the young boy followed the cows to pasture; when he didn't come back to the house, the family searched for him – finding him dead with a poison weed in his hand. He evident chose a "just right looking weed" with a nice stem on it to "toy around" in his mouth. The "little guy" probably felt real "grown-up" and important dangling the stem of the weed in his mouth, but unfortunately, the weed turned out to be poison – resulting in little John's death. Phemia McAffee writes, "The Indians were very bothersome in Swan Lake. Sarah along with the rest of the families and neighbors were always on the "look out" for Indians. If they saw dust, they would all be called in and they would go to the back of the house on a hillside and hide in the willows, hardly daring to breathe. One time, Grandma Wilson was working salt into a large pan of butter and didn't have time to put it away. From where they were hiding, they could see the Indians get off their horses and go into the house. The Indians saw the butter and rubbed it all over their faces and hands. What a time they had laughing and talking Indian talk. Grandmother Wilson was glad the butter was all they took."It must have been very difficult on Martha Jane to endure her little boy's death – especially so soon after the separation from her husband. She must have felt "hopeless" in her situation. It is said in the family that Martha didn't die of any ailment other than "of a broken heart" over the loss of her husband (whom the older family members said "still loved Joseph very much" -- as well as from the tragedy of losing her little boy.Sarah Ann was 2 ½ years of age when her mother died. I've heard that because the children were used to and were comfortable living where they were with their Grandmother, that between all of them ( the father, the second wife, the grandmother, and the older children) Martha Jane's children continued to live and to be raised by Martha's mother, Grandmother Martha Kelly Wilson. Joseph and Margaret remained in Cache County for a few more years where two more children were born to them. Because there was such a need for iron in the pioneer communities in the West, and because it was too expensive to haul the iron from back East, the Kay and Chatterley families were "called" to Cedar City by Brigham Young for the purpose of producing iron for the Mormon settlements as well as for their economy. Although Joseph's father had been a doctor in England, several of the relatives had been in the iron industry while living in England. After being in Cedar City for a while, Joseph and some of Margaret's family – including her mother -- were sent to Arizona where Joseph farmed and ran a farm feed-and-seed store in Lakeside a community close to Pinetop, Show Low, Snowflake, and Taylor, Ariz. "Although the children remained with their Grandmother Wilson, good feelings existed between Joseph's two families. It is known that Joseph made various trips North from Paradise, Cedar City – and later from Arizona, to see his first family wherever they lived in Utah and Idaho. His daughters settled with there families in the Upper Snake River Valleys, while I understand that Joseph's son, William, inherited his father's farm property in Swan Lake by Oxford, Idaho – being passed down through the generations. There was constant mailing of letters and pictures between the half-brothers and sisters with some of the cousins becoming regular pen-pals. Pictures were exchanged as well as a visit or two between the children of both families.