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Essentials
Born: 19 March 1806; Linstead, Suffolk, England
Daughter of: Daniel DAINES and Lydia FEVIER
Married: 1. James SILLETT (?); 2. Nathaniel WILKINSON; 26 October 1831; Wissett, Suffolk, England
Died: 1 April 1868; Hyde Park, Cache County, Utah

Descending family line:

4G Grandmother 3G Grandmother 2G Grandmother G grandfather Grandfather

Lydia DAINES (Nathaniel WILKINSON) Harriet WILKINSON (John BLOOMFIELD) Mary E. BLOOMFIELD (Joseph H. JAMES) George Heber JAMES (Sarah L. NELSON) George Heber JAMES (Norma MORRIS)

b. 1806 b. 1839 b. 1863 b. 1883 b. 1910

BASED ON AN ANONYMOUS ARTICLE
IN "PIONEER WOMEN OF FAITH AND FORTITUDE" VOL. IV
DAUGHTERS OF UTAH PIONEERS (1998) PG. 3,374

Lydia Daines (1806-1868)

     Lydia Daines was born March 19, 1806, in Linstead or Cratfield, Suffolk, England, east of Cambridge near the North Sea. Ancestral File records say she was one of five children born to Daniel Daines and Lydia Fevier. Growing up in England, Lydia worked hard in the family fields. She was an industrious person, good at knitting, sewing and cooking.
     When she was about 20 she began a relationship with James Sillett that produced two children, George and Robert. Robert lived 63 years and died in Utah as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but George died at about age 3 on Aug. 15, 1830, most likely in Suffolk County. It is possible that Lydia never married James because the children used Daines as their surname. Regardless, Lydia and James separated by 1831, when Lydia married Nathaniel Wilkinson. Ancestral File records indicate James Sillett died Sept. 24, 1880, still in Suffolk County.
     Lydia was 25 and Nathaniel was 30 when they were married on Oct. 26, 1831, in Wissett, Suffolk County, England. Together they had six or seven children from 1832 to 1844, all in Suffolk County. Ancestral File records indicate that not all of these children survived to adulthood. Lydia and Nathaniel's daughter Salomia died weeks before her ninth birthday and was buried Sept. 21, 1845. Then, their oldest son, Charles, died days before his 12th birthday and was buried March 21, 1846. There was perhaps another son, Soloman, who died Aug. 31, 1850, as a baby.
     At some point in the early 1850s, missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints came to Suffolk County. Lydia attended their meetings and soon was convinced they represented the true church. The missionaries were invited often to dinner. By 1855 all the surviving members of the Wilkinson family were baptized. About this time another death hit the family. Lydia's and Nathaniel's oldest daughter, Eliza, was buried March 26, 1854, at age 22. Shortly afterward the family began emigrating from England to join the main body of Saints in Utah. Passenger lists show Lydia's daughter, Harriet, aboard the Emerald Isle, a Mormon immigration ship that arrived January 1, 1856, in New York. Another Wilkinson family from Manchester, Lancaster, England, sailed on the Emerald Isle with Lydia, but there does not appear to be any close relation.
     Lydia and Nathaniel and their two youngest children, Lydia, age 17, and William, age 14, sailed from Liverpool on April 11, 1859, aboard the William Tapscott with 721 other Saints. They arrived May 13, 1859, in New York, where they likely continued their journey by seamboat up the Hudson River to Albany. It is unclear whether the Wilkinsons reunited with their daughter Harriet immediately on the East Coast or not until two weeks later in Nebraska. (By this time Harriet had married John Bloomfield and had a daughter.) Most likely the reunion took place in Nebraska.
     The Saints aboard the William Tapscott took a train from Albany to Canada and then crossed into Detroit. From Detroit they took another train to St. Joseph, Mo., and then boarded the steamboat, St. Mary, which carried them to Florence (Winter Quarters), Neb. If the Wilkinsons followed this route with the other William Tapscott immigrants, they would have arrived May 25, 1859, at Winter Quarters.
     Shortly afterward at this site, Lydia's husband, Nathaniel, died at age 58, leaving Lydia a widow with two teenage children. She crossed the Plains to Utah in a company with Mary King Seamons, her son Robert Daines' mother-in-law. Apparently, Robert had immigrated first from England and married Jerimah Seamons on May 1, 1859, in Omaha, Neb. He then had traveled with Jerimah to Utah, settling in Hyde Park. Lydia reached his home there in the fall of 1860. The next spring, her sons Robert and William built her a log home at Hyde Park.
     An intelligent, energetic and progressive woman, Lydia was an asset in the organization and building of the young Hyde Park community. She was deeply religious and loyal to her family. She often provided rooms for church authorities who needed accommodations.
     For the last 15 years of her life, she suffered poor health but was pleasant and patient despite her problems. She died April 1, 1868, at Hyde Park, Utah, at age 62.

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John BLOOMFIELD Jr.
John BLOOMFIELD Sr.
Mary Eliza BLOOMFIELD
Lydia DAINES
Harriet WILKINSON

CHILDREN WITH JAMES SILLETT

CHILDREN WITH NATHANIEL WILKINSON