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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION:
Mary Procter was born in 1790 to Joseph and Ann Hurdman Procter.
The eighth of nine children, she was christened at Quarrington
Parish in Lincolnshire on the 14th of March 1790.
Mary's parents were married at Scredlington Parish in January
of 1777. Scredlington Parish is three and a half miles south
of the town of Sleaford in the center of southern Lincolnshire.1 The Proctors' first three
children, Elizabeth, John, and Ann were christened in Scredington
Parish in 1777, 1779, and 1781. The next five children of Joseph
and Ann were chirstened at Quarrington Parish, northwest of Scredlington,
one mile west of Sleaford. These children were David, born in
1784, Joseph born in 1786 (he died at 14 months), twins 2 Richard Hurdman Proctor and
Ruth Haythorn Procter in 1788, and Mary in 1790.
Mary's father, Joseph Procter, died when she was just a year
and a half old, in November of 1791 and was buried at Quarrington.
The family then moved back to Scredlington Parish where Ann had
her last child in January of 1792, naming him Joseph after his
father. The record of his christening in Scredlington Parish
names Ann Procter as a pauper, indicating that she and her family
were financially supprted by the parish.
When Mary was six years old, her older brother, David died
just one month before his twelvth birthday. The rest of Mary's
siblings grew to adulthood and married, except for her older
sister Ann, who died unmarried at the age of 35. Her mother,
Ann Procter remained a widow for the rest of her life and died
in 1824 at the age of 66. She was buried at Scredlington.
At the age of nineteen, Mary married a widower by the name
of John Harker, who was a farmer in Semperingham Parish, about
five miles southeast of Scredington. His one hundred and ten
acre farm was located in the village of Pointon, which was part
of Semperingham Parish. John Harker was much older than Mary,
by twenty-four years, as he was forty-three when they married.3
John and Mary had their first child in 1810, a boy whom they
named John. He was quickly followed six other children, five
boys and one girl. Mary had these seven children in eleven years.
Those who followed John were; William in 1812, Amos in 1813,
Friday in 1816, Joseph in 1818, Mary Anne in 1819, and Job in
1821.
Mary's husband John died in November of 1826 at the age of
60, leaving her a thirty-six-year-old widow with her oldest child
age sixteen and the youngest just five. According to his son,
Joseph, John Harker was a heavy drinker, which caused a some
distress six or seven years before he died and may have contributed
to his death. He left this life deeply in debt and according
to Joseph, it was "through the kindness of friends"
that Mary was able to keep the farm. Joseph goes on to describe
his mother as "a very hard woman who was very anxious concerning
the welfare of her children."4
Due to the large size of Mary's family and the little means
to run the farm, it was necessary that her children's education
was cut short as they were needed both to work on the farm and
elsewhere to help support the family. The oldest son, John took
charge of his mother's farm for a while, but in 1834, after both
Amos and William had married and moved away, Mary requested that
sixteen-year-old Joseph return from his work on a farm in Falkingham
to take charge of her farm. John had become "very unsteady,
approaching an almost inveterate drunkard"5. Due to his alcolholism, John would later
be committed to the Lincoln Asylum at Bracebridge, where he spent
the rest of his life 6,
dying in 1891.
Joseph continued to run his mother's farm even after his marriage
to Susannah Sneath, Mary Anne went to work in the home of a gentleman's
family, and Job was apprenticed with a carpenter and joiner.
Friday is described by Joseph as being "very low spirited"7 at this time of life. He
never married and lived with his brother Amos in his later years.
Although he worked for nearby farmers, he is categorized on the
census as "insane" 8
or "idiot"9,
indicating some mental disorder.
Early in 1845, Mary's son Amos became converted to the Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He shared the teachings
of this new religion with his family and converted his wife Betsy,
his brother, Joseph and sister-in-law, Susannah, and his mother.
Mary Procter Harker was baptized into the LDS Church on the 17th
of August 1845 by Amos Harker.
One of the doctrines of the new religion was the principle
of gathering, where converts immigrated to "Zion" to
gather together with other Latter-day Saints in America. At the
time of the Harker's conversion in 1845, the Latter-day Saints
were gathering together at Nauvoo, Illinois. This principle of
gathering would have an enormous and life-long effect on Mary's
family.
Joseph was the first to immigrate in February of 1846. William
took Joseph and Susannah and their two sons to Nottingham, where
they caught a train to Liverpool and boarded a ship to America
arriving in New Orleans in May of 1846. Unbeknownst to Joseph,
the Latter-day Saints had been driven from their homes in Nauvoo
the very same month he had left his home in England, and although
he visited Nauvoo, he and Susannah continued across Iowa and
joined the Saints at Winter Quarters in western Iowa. The following
summer they journeyed to the Salt Lake Valley arriving in October
of 1847. They would never see any of their family again.
In May of 1847, just one month before Joseph left Iowa for
his trip across the plains, his mother Mary boarded a ship, "The
William and Elizabeth" in Liverpool. Along with William
and Eliza and their six daughters, Amos and Betsy and their five
children, and Friday, she left her home at Pointon and set off
for a new life in America. Mary left behind her son John, an
inmate at the Lincoln Asylum, and her daughter Mary Anne, who
continued her domestic work with a gentleman's family until her
marriage in 1849 to Rawson Byron. Mary never met her son-in-law,
nor did she ever see Mary Anne's five children. Mary's youngest
son, Job and his family immigrated to Chicago in 1848, but Mary
never saw them again after her departure from England.
The journey to America proved a difficult one for the family
as well. William died on the journey and was buried at sea. The
passenger list, which was filled out when the passengers arrived
at New Orleans simply states "William Harker died on voyage"10, and Amos now was the sole
male support not only for his wife and children, his mother,
and handicapped brother, his brother's widow and her children
were in need as well.11
By July of 1847, Mary and Amos had both purchased land 12 in Elk Grove, Lafayette
County, Wisconsin which was about 200 miles up the Mississippi
River from Nauvoo. Several groups of Latter-day Saints had gone
to Lafayette County after their expulsion from Nauvoo. They went
there to earn money in the lead mines of southwest Wisconsin
in order to finance their trip across the plains. Although the
connection is not clear, it is possible that Amos went there
with one of these groups. There were other Latter-day Saint immigrants
on board the "William and Elizabeth" with Amos and
Mary who settled in Lafayette County as well13. Amos and Betsy later joined the Reorganized
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which originated
in Lafayette County, Wisconsin 14.
Mary died just one year after her arrival in America. She
died on August 6, 1848 in Elk Grove, Wisconsin at the age of
58. The land in Elk Grove was, and still is a wide-open, empty
wilderness, with very little of the comforts of the more civilized
villages of Lincolnshire Mary had left behind. Mary was buried
in a small, new cemetery carved out of this wilderness, on a
dirt road just north of her farm in Elk Grove Township.15
Footnotes
1. See Photo Album for Historic
Map of Lincolnshire.
2.
The twins, who were just two years older than Mary were named
after their grandparents; Richard Hurdman being their maternal
grandfather and Ruth Haythorn being their paternal grandmother.
3. John and his first wife, Susannah
Tyler had married in 1790, the same year that Mary was born.
Susannah had died in 1807, never having had any children.
4. Journal
of Joseph Harker.
5. Journal
of Joseph Harker.
6. 1861
British Census, Lincoln Asylum. FHL film #542,959
7. Journal
of Joseph Harker.
8. 1870
U.S. Census, Elk Grove, Lafayette County, Wisconsin.
9. 1880
U.S. Census, Elk Grove, Lafayette County, Wisconsin.
10. Passenger
Arrivals, New Orleans, May 1847. FHL film #
11.In
the settling of Mary's estate in Lafayette County during the
1850's, William's widow filed a claim against Mary's estate for
her six daughters. Amos countered with an affidavit from an Elk
Grove neighbor who was a fellow passenger on the "William
and Elizabeth" and an acquaintance in Lincolnshire. This
man testified that William had received his portion of Mary's
estate in the form of a loan to pay for his family's passage
to America, thus refuting Eliza's claim on Mary's estate. See
Documents for Probate papers.
12. Mary
purchased two parcels of land. One of 20 acres for $, the other
of 40 acres for $. Amos purchased 80 acres adjacent (east) to
Mary's 40 acres for $. See Documents for deeds. Amos acquired
all of this land at Mary's death. See Photo Album for Elk Grove
Township Map locating the Harker properties and photographs of
the land.
13. Passenger
Arrivals, New Orleans, May 1847. FHL film # and 1855 Wisconsin
State Census FHL film #
14.
15. See Photo Album for Elk Grove Township
Map sowing location of cemetery and photographs of the cemetery
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REFERENCES:
Quarrington Bishop's Transcripts
FHL film # 504,736
Scredington Bishop's Transcripts
FHL film # 435,978
The Journal of Joseph Harker
LDS CHurch Historian's Office
Semperingham Bishop's Trans.
FHL film # 508,036
Lincoln Conference
Record of Members
FHL film # 87,011
Passenger Arrivals, New Orleans
FHL film #
Lafayette County Land Records
FHL film #
Early Membership Records
RLDS Church
Susan Easton Black
page
Estate of Mary Harker
Probate Records
Lafayette County Courthouse
Darlington, Wisconsin
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