John Marriott's Wives

In 1841, John Marriott and Miss Susan Fox (Folk) were married by Lorenzo Snow in Honeydon Beds, England. This was the first marriage performed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in England. At the end of the year the bride and groom made preparations to go to America.

January 1843, John and Susan Fox left Liverpool on the ship Swanton to America. While en route, on the Atlantic Ocean, Susan gave birth to their first child. It died the first day. After three months they arrived in the city of Nauvoo.

While in Nauvoo, John Marriott donated his labor and time to the erection of the Nauvoo Temple as a free will offering. Susan, his wife, made lace and sold it for their living.

May 1851, John and Susan began their long, tiresome journey to Utah which took sixteen weeks. Shortly after their arrival they located at Kaysville, Davis County, Utah. By this time they had four more children.

February 1854, John Marriott married Elizabeth Stewart. This was a polygamist marriage. John lived in Kaysville with his two wives and four children. John and Elizabeth's first child was born April 25, 1855, at Kaysville. They named her Elizabeth after her mother.

John Marriott, his two wives and five children, were then asked by the Church Authorities to move to an area near Ogden which they named Marriott after John Marriott. John, Susan, Elizabeth, and their five children lived in wagon boxes and then in a dugout. These wives worked hard together. Water had to be carried one-half mile as well as trees and brush cleared off. They also suffered the early plagues of grasshoppers and crickets. Their food at this time was sego roots and bran b read.

November 5, 1855, John Marriott married his third wife, Trezer Southwick. A year after John and his families arrived in Marriott, they planted seventy acres of wheat and received seventy bushels in return. This was just enough to keep them from starving.

January 1857, John Marriott married his fourth wife, Margaret Burton. Soon after this marriage John Marriott was asked to join Johnson's Army. The wives heard that if they went south they would get food. They succeeded in weaving sort of a wagon cover, which was a long, coarse cloth, to cover the wagon while traveling in the hot sun. They would sing together "Why should we mourn or think our lot is hard, 'tis not so, all is well." They took lye from wood ashes and manufactured soap.

John Marriott built a home for Trezer in Salt Creek, about fifteen miles below Marriott, where she and her children lived. The wives met there and made hundreds of pounds of cheese for their children and husband. That which was not needed they sold or traded for clothes. These wives lived together, loved each other, and did not know the meaning of defeat or despair.

John built Elizabeth a lovely home in Marriott which is still standing and in good condition. Margaret lived one year in Marriott, then John built her a house in Ogden.

These wives lived well together. They bore thirty-five children and the tribute given to them was, "As our Heavenly Father judges beauty, they were the rarest, most beautiful flowers that ever graced the earth."