Gillette & Butterley

Joshua and Mary were married at Rotherham, Yorkshire, England on July 15, 1832. They made their home in Handsworth which was close to Sheffield. Joshua's occupation was that of collier. Joshua and Mary had eight children while at Handsworth: Ann (1832), John (1835), Jane (1837), Samuel (1839), Thomas (1841), Elizabeth (1843), Mark (1846), and Maria Henrietta (1848).

Thomas and Elizabeth both died in December of 1844. He was three and she was just over a year old. Joshua and Mary and their remaining six children left England in 1849. They sailed aboard the "Zetland" from Liverpool on November 10, 1849. Three year old Mark died on November 1849 just four days after they left Liverpool and was buried at sea.

The "Zetland" arrived in New Orleans and the Gillett family made their way to Alton, Illinois where they lived until 1852. In Alton a daughter, Mary Ann, was born on May 15, 1852 and their son John, 17, died. Another daughter, Ann, married John Morgan in April of 1850.

The Gillett family left Alton and went to Kanesville, Iowa (Council Bluffs) where they joined a wagon train company. They traveled to Salt Lake Valley with the John Tidwell wagon train company which left Kanesville in early June and arrived in the Salt Lake Valley on September 15, 1852.

Upon arriving in Salt Lake Valley, they camped on the square. The "square" was located where the city and county building now stands.

They lived in Salt Lake Valley for one year, and they moved to Tooele, Utah in 1853. The first winter was spent in a dugout at the mouth of Settlement Canyon. They had no floor or windows and only cedar bark to lay on the floor with an old buffalo robe to sleep on.

In 1853 the people living in the old settlement of Tooele drew lots and laid out the present town of Tooele. Joshua drew a lot which was on main street between Vine Street and First North. They built a one log cabin and this was where their daughter Sarah was born. While living in Tooele, Joshua worked on the old mud wall which surrounded the town on three sides. They lived in their log cabin in Tooele for three years and then moved to Milton, Tooele County where the grist mill was located.

Another son whom they named Brigham was born in 1856 at Milton. Joshua was active in church affairs and was the leader of the choir. He and his daughter Maryann would entertain with singing and dancing at all the social gatherings. Joshua was very particular about his morning prayers. All the children had to be up, washed and ready to kneel at the old bench for prayer.

In 1858 Johnson's army threatened to move into the area to dissemble the "Mormons". The Gillett family along with the rest of the "Saints" left their homes and moved to Lehi. Their daughter Emma was born in Lehi in 1858. When the problem with Johnson's army was resolved, they moved back to Milton where their last child, Ellen Rebecca, was born in 1860.

Joshua died on April 15, 1865 and was buried in the old Tooele Cemetery. His body was later moved to the existing cemetery. Mary moved back to their home on main street after Joshua died. She was only fifty years old and had six children at home, the oldest was sixteen and the youngest was five years old.

Mary was a nurse and also a midwife. She was one of the first nurses in Tooele. Mary had helped Joshua on the farm. She could go out in the field, catch a sheep, shear it, wash the wool, spin it into cloth and make clothes out of the material. She walked to Milton and E.T. City for confinement cases (maternity). Milton is about ten miles and E.T. City (Lakepoint) about twelve miles from Tooele. Mary raised her children and made her living nursing. Mary's youngest child, Ellen, died at the age of eleven in 1871. Mary had buried a husband and five children.

Mary was of a very gentle and kind disposition. She nursed until she was nearly seventy years old. She worked in the Temple a great deal doing work for the dead. She was a Relief Society worker up to the time of her death. She died on June 5, 1885 at Tooele at the age of seventy. She was buried next to her husband in the Tooele City Cemetery.