Look at the Dress

 Sarah LARNDER COLE

 William George COLE

Taken from the "Life History of Charles Clinton Allen.

[Son of Frederick Charles Allen.  Frederick was the son of John Allen and Elizabeth Cole. Elizabeth Cole Allen was the oldest daughter of William George Cole and Sarah Larnder.] 

My paternal grandmother was Elizabeth Cole Allen—born April 19, 1938—in Poplar Parrish, Middlesex, England. Her father and mother—George William Cole and Sarah Lander Cole, joined the Latter-day Saint Church and decided to come to Salt Lake City and so booked passage for the family in 1863, on the Amazon. When they boarded the ship, they found that not all of them could go aboard as there wasn’t room. So, Elizabeth and her sister Eliza were forced to take passage on another ship. It sailed, as did the Amazon, but the Amazon sprang a seam and had to return to port. It was a year before it was mended and they could sail. Charles Dickens had written some unsatisfactory comments about the Mormons and so he decided to visit the Amazon and have a look for himself at the Mormons. He changed his mind and wrote some very flattering things about the members on the ship. He recorded it and published it in “Mr. Uncommercial.” Eliza had married a Mr. Cressoll and had a four or five-month old baby. Her husband would have nothing to do with the church and so she left him and came with my grandmother. They arrived in New Orleans and found the Amazon had been delayed so they went up the Mississippi and came to Utah. They had to walk almost 800 miles and carry the baby with them. John Allen had been assigned to make trips and help the trains to Utah. He met Elizabeth Cole and they were married and settled in Goshen, Utah. Eliza succeeded in finding work in Salt Lake to support her and her child. A little later, she met a widower—a Mr. Hawkes—from Logan and married him. They settled in Logan. The rest of the family came the next year and also settled in Logan.

Thanks to family members sharing at familysearch.org we now have photos and history which had been unknown.

ELIZA COLE Excerpts from A Sketch of the Life of Sarah Lardner Cole By Glanda C. Landon Submitted by Mary Dennis Poulter

These excerpts are taken from the time the Cole Family was preparing to leave England to follow the Saints to Utah. . . . Beautiful young Eliza had fallen in love with a handsome young man named Paul Cressall. Like many young Englishmen, he was a sailor for the Royal Navy . . . (sentence missing) was “queen of the Seas.” Their first child Ellenor was born December 13 1858 but had died early in 1859. This was a sorrow also for Sarah (Eliza’s mother) and her husband to lose their first little grandchild. Having lost three of their own little ones in infancy, they grieved for and with Eliza in her loss. Two years later Eliza’s second child, little Clarence Cressall, arrived on December 13, 1861, and no doubt he was a great joy to all the family. Unfortunately, Eliza’s husband Paul was never interested in Mormonism, the religion that meant so much to her and her family. As the Coles prepared to leave England, they faced the prospect of never seeing Eliza and her baby again. The Cole Family booked passage on the Amazon, expecting to sail for America early in 1862. As the sailing date drew near, the other members begged Eliza to come with them. Sarah’s heart must have ached with her daughter’s over this decision, for it would be difficult for Eliza whichever choice she made. At the last moment Eliza was persuaded to go too. (Many years later Eliza told her daughter-in-law that she “. . .left her love in England to join the Saints in Zion and to be with her parents and brothers and sister.” (Mitton, Jessie Cressal, Life of Clarance C. C. Cressal, unpub. Manuscript and letters to Glenda Landon dated Dec. 2, 1977 and Aug. 20, 1979.) At that late date the Amazon was booked full and could take no more passengers, so Elizabeth offered to go on another ship with Eliza and her baby. The two girls, Elizabeth, then 24; Eliza, 22;and baby Clarence, just 4 months old, embarked from London on the John J. Boyd sailing vessel on April 23, 1862, expecting the remainder of their family to leave about the same time and meet them in New York. However, the Amazon was delayed for repairs, and it was actually more than a year before it set sail for America. The girls’ journey took more than five months of travel; they had to walk the last 1000 miles and carry the baby. By the time they arrived in Utah, Sept. 24, 1862, baby Clarence was nine months old. . . . . . As the young women crossed the plains in the previous summer Elizabeth had become acquainted with one of the teamsters, John Allen, a young Englishman who was helping that company of converts make the trip to Utah. A romance developed between them during the journey, and a few days after the wagon train reached Utah, John and Elizabeth were married in Goshen, September 28, 1862. They settled in a log home there in Goshen, a small colony about 60 miles south and west of Salt Lake City. Eliza had remained in Salt Lake City for about 2 months and found some work in homes to provide for herself and baby. While there she met a young Englishman, Francis Hawkes, who was also born in London and who had come to Utah nine years earlier. He had married and settled in Logan, Cache Valley, about 90 miles north of Salt Lake. His wife and baby had both died at childbirth, so he was lonely, too. He and Eliza were married November 23, 1862. They then went to live in the new settlement of Logan where he had a small home. He was a good, kind man and a loving father to her son, little Clarence who was nicknamed Cal.