Peters Family - Blaenau Ffestiniog
David Hughes Peters was born10th March 1810 in Llanfair, Merionethshire. Laura Jones Davis was born 8th February 1817 in Llanfrothen. They were married in Llandecwyn on 11th April 1840. They had 3 children whilst living in Festiniog, Sarah born 6th February 1841, Laura born 16th March 1842, Elisabeth born 21st June 1845 who died 2nd October 1846 in Llanfrothen.
When they lived at Hen Felin, Rhyd y Sarn, they were baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints on 21st June 1846. When Abel Evans, a Welsh missionary, was ready to perform their baptisms, Lowry was the first to step forward to be baptized.
Abel Evans
David however, deciding that a man should always be first, stepped forward into the water, in the clothes he was standing in. So he was the second and Laura the third person to be baptized in that part of North Wales, the first being David Roberts.
David & Lowrie Peters
David and Laura (also known as Lowrie) emigrated to Utah 3 years after they were baptised. David sold everything just before going to America. He thought they wouldn't need to take much luggage as they were going to "Zion: the land of milk and honey". Lowry insisted that because they were going to a new, unsettled part of a country they ought to be prepared. She filled two steamer trunks with blankets, shoes and other things including a bolt of white material not knowing for what purpose.
Princes Wharf, Menai Bridge
The blankets were later used to help others on the trek westwards across America and the material used for making white clothes to wear in the temple. David and Lowry, with their 2 daughters and David’s nephew, Peter Edwards, travelled to America with 5 others whose passage David had paid.
They sailed from Princes Wharf , Menai Bridge, Anglesey to Liverpool and then on 5th March 1849 they left Liverpool aboard the sailing vessel ‘Hartley’. The company consisted of 238 members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints all bound for Utah under the leadership of William Hulme.
Setting out for Liverpool
The Hartley
They landed in New Orleans 28 April 1849, having been 7 weeks on the ocean and Elder Lucius N. Scovil was there to receive them. About four o'clock in the evening, the emigrants were comfortably berthed at No. 17 on the Levee. From New Orleans they sailed up the Mississippi River to St. Louis on the ill-fated ‘Mameluke’ on which an epidemic of cholera broke out. Lowry tended to the sick and prepared the dead for burial until finally she herself was stricken with the disease.
However she felt that she would be healed and get to Utah safely because she believed that God wanted them to go to America at that time. She insisted that she be helped to keep standing and keep moving around as she had seen so many others die in their sleep. She died 50 years later on 14th December 1899. David died 12th June the previous year.
They travelled west with the George A. Smith/Dan Jones Company wagon train company which departed from Kanesville Iowa (Council Bluffs) on 14th July 1849 arriving in Salt Lake on 26th October. 120 wagons were in the company when it began its journey. They combined with the Ezra T. Benson company as they traveled close together.
They had 6 more children after arriving in America: John David born 10th May 1850, David Jones born 23rd October 1851 who died 26th September 1852, William born 30th October 1853 who died 9th Oct 1864, Morris Rees born 22nd November 1855, Thomas Davis born 14th December 1857, and Peter Hughes born 27th November 1860