posted by Sandy on Ancestors of Sandra Gale

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Mary Shaw was born in England to Richard Shaw and Elizabeth Postles.  She was the eleventh child of twelve born to her parents.  She married John Sant in 1831 and became the mother of twelve children.  Their daughter Elizabeth who married Thomas Winterbottom is our direct ancestor.  Mary’s husband John met the missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints and was baptized.  Mary was not immediately convinced.  Local people called the Mormons “dippers” because of their practice of baptism by immersion.  Not much time passed before Mary gained a testimony of the Gospel and was baptized.  She remained a faithful member until her death.

Mary and John’s son George came to America first and settled in Utah.  After many years of saving, Mary and John left three little graves and two married daughters behind and sailed on the ship Manchester.  The daughters would later join them.  After arriving in America they made the trek by wagon over land to Salt Lake City.  From there they went to Smithfield where they lived for the year in a cabin their son George had built.  Thirteen people lived in the cabin.

Mary and her family were asked to help colonize the area of Bloomington in the Bear Lake Valley near the Utah-Idaho border.  They ate wild game and oiled wheat the first year to stay alive.  The next five years were also full of hardship.  Next they moved to Oxford which became Clifton.  There, they and most of their family through generations lived and died. The Clifton City Cemetery contains over 70 grave stones for the posterity of Mary and John Sant.  They are buried together in that place.

The migration of Mary Shaw Sant

England to Utah to Idaho

Tags: england, idaho, Postles, Sant, Shaw, the mormon church, utah, Winterbottom