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William Nutter, aged twenty-five years, and Dinah Hingham, aged eighteen years, were married in Lancastershire, England, in 1853....In Mrs. Nutter's family there were seven children....Mrs. Nutter, as a small child, wound bobbins for weavers and when older
worked in cotton and woolen mills. About this date there were many Mormon elders in both England and Wales and large numbers of the people in these parts of England were converted to the Mormon
faith and emigrated to Utah....Mr. Nutter was
converted to the Mormon faith and earnestly advocated its cause, though it seems that he gave little thought to its polygamous feature.... Mr. Nutter...
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William Nutter, aged twenty-five years, and Dinah Hingham, aged eighteen years, were married in Lancastershire, England, in 1853....In Mrs. Nutter's family there were seven children....Mrs. Nutter, as a small child, wound bobbins for weavers and when older
worked in cotton and woolen mills. About this date there were many Mormon elders in both England and Wales and large numbers of the people in these parts of England were converted to the Mormon
faith and emigrated to Utah....Mr. Nutter was
converted to the Mormon faith and earnestly advocated its cause, though it seems that he gave little thought to its polygamous feature.... Mr. Nutter was so imbued with the truth of the Mormon faith that he attempted to convert his mother...but without success.
Two children, the eldest a daughter named Olive, and the second a son named Moroni, after one of the most prominent characters in the Mormon Bible, had been born to Mr. and Mrs. Nutter when in the spring of 1855, in company with 700 other Mormon emigrants, they took passage on a sailing vessel named the Juventa, their destination, Salt Lake City, Utah. This vessel, the Juventa, had been condemned as unseaworthy by the British government, but the condemnation seems not to have prevented the use of the vessel to transport Mormon emigrants. The passage cost about thirty dollars for each person and included board. Five weeks were required for the trip and they landed at Philadelphia,Pa. Mr. and Mrs. Nutter were without means when they landed, but had been led to believe that plenty of work at good wages could be had on arrival and that they could earn enough to enable them to pursue their journey to Utah. As both had worked all their lives in cotton and woolen factories, they fully expected to find like employment on arrival, but were disappointed....About this time the eldest child, Olive, died of summer complaint and was buried in Philadelphia. After a few weeks Mr. Nutter found employment in a
cotton factory but was taken sick and being without any means, was compelled to ask for and received a ticket of admission to an almshouse, but could not get admission for his wife and child. The family went together to the almshouse, arriving in the evening. The superintendent, on coming to the door a loud, coarse voice, "What in h-l did you come at this time of night for ?" This brutal reception so
angered Mr. Nutter that he left the building....He was taken to a building called "House of Industry," established by the Quakers for those out of work and without means, where the family were provided with clean beds and good food until employment could be found....furnished transportation on a sailing vessel but furnished nothing to eat and the family became very hungry when a negro cook took pity and gave them a meal....Gloster, N. J. where they found employment in print works, and where they remained for two years. At this place the second child, Moroni, died and was buried in
Gloster, also John N., the second son was born in 1855....In the year 1857, twin boys were born, William H. and W. Hingham. The one named W. Hingham died in early infancy and was buried beside his sister Olive in Philadelphia.
The family remained in Philadelphia until enough had been earned to enable them to reach Utah. They left Philadelphia in the spring of 1859 and going to some point on the Ohio River traveled down that stream and up the Mississippi and Missouri rivers to Florence, near Omaha, which was an outfitting and starting point for Mormon emigrants. Mrs. Nutter recalls that they were three days making the distance from St. Joseph to Florence occasioned by their boat repeatly getting aground on sand bars...All emigrants were supposed to carry sufficient provisions to last the entire journey but many were wasteful and were entirely out before the end of the journey. Mrs. Nutter says she feared more than wild Indians these half famished emigrants when they came demanding food. [Once on the wagontrain to Utah] Owing to the crowded condition of their
wagon, Mrs. Nutter walked the entire distance, riding less than twenty-five miles. Rice was the principal food of the family, this with milk from their cow furnishing a most satisfactory meal....[The wagon master was a drunkard] On one occasion he did not break camp until after noon and then announced that they would travel in the night to make up lost time. For fear that William H., the baby, might fall out the wagon in the dark and be injured, Mrs. Nutter tied him with a rope to the wagon bows. While driving in the night, on this
occasion, a teamster in lighting his pipe, frightened his oxen and this in turn caused a stampede of other ox teams and loose stock, cows and other cattle. Mrs. Nutter had milked their cow previous to starting and was carrying the milk in a pail in order to have it for their supper when they camped. In the stampede she was knocked down and the milk spilled but she was not injured....Helen, the second daughter, was born in Utah in 1860; in 1862 the family arranged to leave Utah. They traded their real estate property for two yoke of oxen and a wagon, and provided food for the journey but had no cow. Mrs. Nutter had taken with her to Utah a loom, thinking she might get work at her trade. This loom she traded for a gold watch. They left Utah in the month of June....The Nutter family had planned to cross the River at Julesburg, coming down on the north side of that river. At this point they met some Indians who threatened to kill them if they crossed the river, so they followed the trail on the south side until they reached Fort Kearney, crossing the Platte at that point. When Mrs. Nutter was asked if they had any trouble in crossing the Platte she answered "Not at all." When asked to describe just how they crossed, she said: "Mr. Nutter walked on the near side,driving the oxen; Mrs. Allen and myself waded in the river on the off side and with whips kept the oxen from turning back...."The Nutter family purchased a "squatter's right" to a claim on Wood River about two miles east of the present Village of Shelton, trading therefore one of the two yoke of oxen. Mrs. Nutter traded her gold watch for a cow and here began anew the struggle for a living and a home....In the spring of 1863, they planted a small acreage of potatoes and other vegetables and managed to break and plant eighteen acres of corn....Mrs. Nutter assisted in the out-door work. From these eighteen acres they harvested and sold 600 bushels of corn selling at $1 per bushel--$600 in all....This was more money than the Nutter family had ever had at one time before and Mrs. Nutter relates that the first article that she ordered when they received the money for this corn was a pair of men's boots, No. 5, for which they paid $5....In August, 1864, occurred the "stampede," memorable in the history of Nebraska Territory for the horrible atrocities committed by the cruel Cheyenne Indians.... Awakened in the dead of night and notified that the dreaded Indians were on the war path, the Nutter family hastily placed their household elects and children in their
wagon.... and took the trail for the Missouri River, every moment in
dread of attack by the savage Indians. Is it any wonder that in the hurry incident to this sudden leaving of their home that baby Helen should have been overlooked and been left asleep in a dry goods box used as a cradle? Some considerable distance had been thus traveled before Helen was missed and the team halted while the anxious father returned for her. During the time the family had been living on the Wood River claim, two daughters, Onie and Leonie, had been born, so that the mother's arms were full even without the baby daughter Helen....At Omaha the family disposed of all of their belongings.... Their first objective point was Quebec, Canada, as Mr. Nutter greatly feared that he might be compelled to take part in the Civil war. Of the journey from Omaha to Quebec, Mrs. Nutter can recall nothing as to route or mode of travel. One thing she recalls with much vividness; it is the great astonishment she felt when crossing "the states," probably Iowa, Illinois and Michigan, that the people on the farms, were busily at work in the fields or in building houses or barns, and in the cities larger buildings were being erected, while she had thought that in "the states" everybody was fighting and being killed....At Quebec they engaged passage on a vessel for Liverpool, England....when the family reached Liverpool they had not a cent to pay fare to their former home....Here the baby Helen was again forgotten, she being asleep in the station with the rest of the family on the train ready to start....While in England the twin daughter, Leonie, died and was buried in England, and a daughter, named Elizabeth, was born.... After the return of the family to Nebraska in 1870 there were born the following children: Hingham, Alice, Jane, Frank, Louisa and Mirabcau D., in all fifteen children, ten of whom are living and of legal age. All these children were given the benefit of a common school education and some of them have been for years teachers in the public schools....No historical account of this family is at all complete that does not include some further mention of the mother of this family; she enjoyed little in the way of educational advantages and at the age when she should have been playing with her dolls was helping to earn the family living by winding bobbins for the weaver's shuttle. She it was who loyally, patiently, uncomplainingly followed the varying fortunes of the family, seemingly never discouraged, always hopeful, doing her full share of work most laborious, enduring her full share of all privations, bearing fifteen children, two pair twins, five of the children dying in early youth or infancy and being buried in widely separated graves, one in England, one in New Jersey, two in Pennsylvania and one in Nebraska. As the years came and went she came to be the financier of the family. She it was who saw that the children had food in plenty and of good quality, that they were comfortably clothed, and while to her the profound theories of Huxley and Darwin and Spencer and the fine spun theories of free trade and protection were a. mysterious as the letters of the Greek alphabet, yet she it was who saw that the children were regular in attendance at school and attended to the cares and duties assigned them. In furnishing; from memory only, on request, something of the history of her family, its travels, its privations, its toils and struggles at times for the barest necessities of life, its times of great peril and sore affliction, she was much more likely to recall some humorous feature or incident than one of peril or great privation and seemed not to realize that people who thus meet and overcome such almost insurmountable obstacles, and at last secure by industry, economy and integrity a comfortable home for themselves and their immediate family are true heroes and heroines of real life. Notwithstanding all the toils and privations incident to her life and travels, Mrs. Nutter in the seventy-third year of her age pursues her daily task with a vigor of step and a sprightliness of movement to be envied by many a person still on the sunny side of life.
-- from Buffalo County, Nebraska, and Its People: A Record of Settlement vol.2 by Samuel Clay Bassett, The S. J. Clarks Publishing Co 1916
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