Samuel and Elizabeth Bott Brough Family Part 1

Samuel Broughb.16 Sept 1839, Lane End, Longton, Staffordshire, England

p. Richard Brough, Mary Horleston Brough
m. 7 Feb 1858, Elizabeth Bott
d. 29 May 1911, Randolph, Utah
b. Randolph City Cemetery, SE corner

Elizabeth Bott Broughb. 9 Mar 1838, Lane End, Longton, Staffordshire, England
p. Benjamin Bott, Elizabeth Abbott
d. 23 Nov 1921, Randolph, Utah
b. Randolph City Cemetery, SE corner

[Editors Note November 8, 2014: people in this picture are identified here.]

Samuel Brough and Elizabeth Bott were both baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on 1 May 1857 by Thomas Orgill of the Longton, Staffordshire, England Branch.

As a young man, Samuel worked in the coal mines around Longton and practiced the trades of masonry and carpentry. British census records state that Samuel was working as a coal miner when he was eleven years old. Elizabeth was the oldest of nine children and did not attend a single day of school in her life. She and her sisters were china painters and decorators in the Staffordshire potteries.

Elizabeth’s parents were members of the Church of England and bitterly opposed her keeping company with Samuel. His father was a Mormon. However, she did, and walked down the country lanes with him as frequently as she could. After Elizabeth joined the Church, her parents turned her away from their home.

On 7 February 1858, Samuel Brough married Elizabeth Bott in Edensor, Staffordshire. He built one room onto his father's house where they lived until they came to America. Four children were born to them in England: Mary Elizabeth 20 Dec 1858, Jane 22 Feb 1860, Samuel 9 Sep 1861, and Eliza 3 Mar 1863.

Samuel and Elizabeth and their children left Liverpool on 30 May 1863 on the ship Cynosure. They sailed with a company of 754 Saints under the direction of David M. Stewart, arriving in New York Harbor on July 19.

While on board ship there was an epidemic of measles and little Samuel became very sick. After arriving in New York, the family started westward. They traveled part of the way to Florence, Nebraska in cattle cars. They crossed the Missouri River near Florence on a ferry. Shortly after arriving in Nebraska, young Samuel died on 7 Aug 1863. He was buried in a dry-goods box, dressed in a little colored nightgown. Elizabeth used the crepe from the bonnet she wore to her father's funeral a year earlier, to stuff the cracks in the box.

On 15 Aug 1863 they started across the plains in the Samuel D. White Company. Snow had fallen before they reached Salt Lake City on 15 Oct 1863. It was cold and miserable. They lived in Bountiful, Utah the first winter and in the spring, moved to Porterville, Utah in Morgan County. There they lived in a dugout in the hillside. It was lined with adobes, and there was a fireplace in one end. In the spring when the snow started to melt, the frost came out of the ground and the water washed down the chimney and part of the wall caved in. A little daughter, Emma, was born in this dugout 25 Mar 1865. This same year Eliza died.


The family was able to move into a two-room house where William Thomas, was born on 11 Dec 1866. The following February, Samuel and Elizabeth went to Salt Lake City, to the old Endowment House and took out their endowments. They were sealed by Apostle Wilford Woodruff who had converted Samuel’s parents to the Gospel in England in 1840. In February 1867, the Union Pacific Railroad was starting down the Weber Canyon. They moved to Henefer and Samuel found employment. Prudence was born in Henefer on 24 Sep 1868. Samuel then moved his family back to Porterville where he started a brick business with his brother Thomas.

In May 1870 Samuel left Elizabeth in Porterville with five children and her expecting another. He walked through the hills to Randolph where land was available for homesteading. Their son, George Henry, was born in Porterville 9 Jul 1870.

(To be continued.)

Great great-granddaughter Flora Lee Lamborn Wall and her husband Bob Wall are presently serving a Church Mission in the beautiful Porterville, Utah Valley where the Broughs lived. They’re watching over and running a multi-stake girls camp there. Camp Zarahemla. They register, coordinate, track reservations (as many as 450 youth and leaders at a time) and care for everything else there; campers, grass, trees, road, river, lodge, cabins, showers, kitchen, meeting hall, and the snow. Camp Zarahemla is across the valley from the hill where the Brough brothers’ dugouts and kilns were. Cemetery hill remains. They can see it from the lodge stoop.

For more Brough Family History visit the Richard Brough Family Organization.

Samuel Brough family picture. Back row Left to Right; Emma, George, Prudence, William, Ada (Adria),
Second row; Mary Elizabeth, father Samuel, mother Elizabeth, Jane
Third row: Hannah, Benjamin. 

The History of the Broughs of Staffordshire, England, and their English, American and Australian Descendants, compiled by Robert Clayton Brough, Catharine Ann Brough Hind, Richard Brough Family Organization, 2004, “History of Samuel Brough and Elizabeth Bott,” pages 117-122. Histories on file at the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers Museum in Salt Lake City, Utah written by daughters MarJean Thomson, Randolph Utah; Vendla K. Roberts, Ogden, Utah, Jan 1986; and Mary McKinnon Crompton, great granddaughter, November 1970. And Helen Rex Frazier family records.