Question: What little town in southern Utah was named after two of the wives of the first settlers, one being Henry Dalton, who served in th Mormon Battalion.
Answer: Henry (Harry) Dalton was born on Jan. 10, 1826 to John Dalton Jr. and Rebecca Turner Cranmer in Wysox, Bradford Co., Pennsylvania. While he was growing up, Henry Dalton was always called “Harry,’ to tell him apart from his cousin, Henry Simon Dalton.
Henry grew up in Wysox with his cousins on the farm named “Dalton Hollow.” They all lived around each other on this farm. In the fall of when he was nine years old, he moved with his family and the rest of the Dalton clan, north west to Freedom, Washtenaw County, Michigan. The Dalton family built cabins there and planted crops. After a few years his father, John Jr. decided to move to Wisconsin. They again made the long trip with their household goods to a new wilderness where they all pitched in to build a cabin and plant crops.
Henry was 18 when his father was baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and made the decision to move to Nauvoo, Illinois. This was sometime in 1843. Henry was also baptized that year. They settled in temporary housing before John Jr. bought two lots and built the family home.
Henry Dalton met the love of his life while living in Nauvoo, Isabella Ferguson. She was only fifteen years old at the time. After a short courtship, they were endowed and married on February 2, 1846, but did not live together at that time. Isabella was the daughter of Isaac Ferguson and Susannah Ford. John Dalton Jr. and his family, along with many other Saints, fled across the Mississippi River in February 1846. After a long difficult journey, they ended up in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
It was in Council Bluffs, that Henry and his brother Edward, accepted the call from Brigham Young to join the Mormon Battalion. Henry (Harry) Dalton was a member of the Mormon Battalion, Company D along with his brother Edward. Cousin Henry Simon Dalton was a private in Company B. Not long after passing Santa Fe, New Mexico, Henry and his brother Edward, became sick. They returned to Santa Fe and joined Lieutenant Willis’ sick detachment and headed for Fort Pueblo, Colorado. They spent the winter of 1846-47 in Pueblo. After wintering at the fort, they migrated in the spring to the Salt Lake Valley, arriving July 29, 1847.
Edward and Henry Dalton both settled in Salt Lake City. Edward was single, and Henry was waiting for his wife, Isabella, to arrive from the east with her parents. Henry was assigned a lot where the other Daltons would soon build on the same block. Isabella arrived with her father and mother and siblings in the summer of 1848 in the Heber C. Kimball Company. Henry and Isabella didn’t have their first child until May of 1850, when Isabella was eighteen.
Henry and Isabell had their first four children while living in Salt Lake City. They then moved to Parowan, Utah, where their next five children were born. In 1872, Henry and Isabel then helped settle the little town of Annabella in Sevier County, Utah. The little settlement of Annabella was named after Ann S. Roberts, wife of Edward K. Roberts, and Isabella Dalton, wife of Henry Dalton, two of the first women settlers of the place.
Henry had settled in the Sevier Valley in the spring of 1871, taking up the springs (with adjacent land) which afterwards became known as Annabella Springs. Brother Dalton built the first log cabin there in the summer of 1871, and soon afterwards brought his family. Other settlers arrived the same year. An irrigation ditch was commenced and many improvements made, though only a limited crop of grain was raised in 1871 by irrigating from the Annabella Springs.
Isabella had her last child in September 1872 in Annabella. She died at age 41 in Annabella, on January 2, 1873, and was buried in an unconfirmed burial place. Shortly thereafter, Henry moved his family to Kanosh. Henry (Harry) Dalton died on February 3, 1906 in Kanosh, Millard County, Utah and is buried in the Kanosh Cemetery. His death certificate lists him as Henry, but the tombstone lists him as Harry.
Source: “The History of Henry (Harry) Dalton,’ by Rodney G. Dalton, FamilySearch.org; FamilySearch.org Sources; FindAGrave story for Isabell Ferguson Dalton; FindAGrave for Henry Dalton.
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