My great-great-grandmother, Sarah Denton Moulton, saved coins in a fruit jar for about 15 years before the PEF (Perpetual Emigration Fund) made it possible for her family to gather with the LDS Saints in "Zion".
Leaving behind England and going to America must have been a great act of great faith for her, her husband, Thomas, and their children. Among the children was my great grandfather, Joseph. He was eleven at the time they finally left England. He probably knew what that fruit jar represented. When the family ate only barley to try and pinch and save, he might have looked at the jar and thought about the family plan to gather with Saints in America.
Perhaps with every coin Sarah placed in the jar, her own desire to make the journey increased. It likely left an impression on all her children.
In faith, Sarah was left her own extended family behind. In faith, she stepped onto the Ship Thornton very close to delivering a child. That baby, Charles Alma Moulton, was born on the Irish Sea. One of his children remembers: "He often mentioned that he was a man who had no country as a birthplace because he was born aboard the ship Thorton which sailed from Liverpool, England in May 1856."
In faith, Sarah acted courageously. She knew only a little of the danger ahead. She was worried about the safety of her family, soon to be eight children. It is recorded that she received a blessing from priesthood leaders in England promising her that not one member of her family would be lost.
In the history written by one of Charles Alma Moulton's children there is this memory recorded:
The family crossed the plains in the James G. Willey Mormon Pioneer Handcart Company to get to Utah in November of 1856. They suffered great hardship on the way and Dad was a little baby so thin he was hardly expected to survive. Kind people in Salt Lake helped the family and they all recovered after a while from the effects of the cold weary journey." (Family Search, Life Sketch.)
As promised, not one member of the faithful Moulton family perished during the trek to Utah.
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| Royal Albert Docks is the number one tourist attraction in Liverpool. |
Dr. S. Michael Wilcox expressed his deep feelings about walking on the Royal Albert Docks on June 27, 2017 and I share it below:
An English friend once gave me an 1844 half farthing as a memorial to all the poor British saints that saved, sometimes for years, the tiny coins, one by one, until they had enough to buy their passage to Zion. It is worn and smoothed by many fingers as it passed from hand to hand through the years. Now it rests in my own. I carry this coin with me when I go to England and finger it softly as I walk the dockside. It takes me back into the past and I can see it all as if it were my own memory, my own farewell—the ship resting securely moored to the riverfront, trunks and cloth bundles waiting to be loaded stacked pell-mell along the wharf, sacks of grain swinging precariously above the deck, sailors climbing the rope ladders and along the yardarms rhythmically moving to the music of their shanties. Everywhere there is bustle and hurry and business and excitement. I can hear the sounds of the loaded carts shaking along the cobblestones groaning under the burden of each families precious belongings, taste the warm freshness of scones pedaled in the streets, feel the rope roughness of the ships rigging stretched taut against the sails, smell the salt sea breeze coming off the Atlantic and up the river, see the fading evening light which heralds that last sacred day in England. Candles are flickering throughout the city and the ship’s lanterns sway on the night air as the stars blink into life over Liverpool Cathedral. There is homesickness in the air, yet there is also the call of the new land and all its promises.
Then there are the people. Mothers clutching the hands of tiny children fearful of losing them in the rush of hurried preparations, fathers firm faces trying so hard to hide their own anxieties and be strong for their families, young men huddled in tight masses speaking knowingly of what they do not really know, girls looking in the shop windows for that final stretch of ribbon or English lace to bring a memory of Europe to the log cabin wilderness into which they go. There is excitement, wonder, laughter, tears, longing and love washing across the riverfront, baptizing the red brick of the warehouses that still stand silently today as if they knew that they had witnessed God moving among his children directing them to a new world, new lives, new hopes. Were they not engaged in His work and was He not pleased with their sacrifices?
Some years ago, I also boarded a three-masted tall ship at the Albert Docks and sailed down the Mersey River. The fates were kind to me and I drew the position at the wheel. I steered a course straight down the river. The tide pulled the ship towards the Atlantic as the sails filled with the winds of England, a parting gift from the island that has become almost my own home. It seemed that all the hopes and dreams of tens of thousands sailed with me that evening. I looked back at the docks and could still see, over a century and a half later, the ghostly waving hands and handkerchiefs of loved ones left behind whose faces and voices our ancestors would never see nor hear again, and I thought of the words of one of them, my wife’s great-grandfather, who stood on these same docks framed by these same brick buildings, and sailed down the quiet waters of the Mersey toward America.
“We left Liverpool on the 18th of May. Seeing my native land gradually sink into the horizon gave me a feeling of loneliness and uncertainty. I realized how dear it was; containing all that had given me a fullness of joy. Loving parents, the companions of my childhood, all my relatives, faithful friends, the land I revered, the ancient castles whose ruins I loved to explore, the stately mansions, splendid cathedrals, green lanes, cozy cottages, the hills and vales, green fields and fragrant gardens ran through my mind. My path was separating us by an ocean, a continent, perhaps forever.”
I hope to one day have my own 1844 half farthing one day to show to my grandchildren. Perhaps I will create a jar full of small coins to represent the sacrifices made by our ancestors so they could gather with the Saints to Zion.
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