Christopher Layton
| Christopher Layton | |
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| Born |
March 8, 1821 Thorncote Green, Northill, Bedfordshire, England |
| Died | August 7, 1898 (aged 77) Kaysville, Utah, United States |
| Resting place | Kaysville City Cemetery 41°02′42″N 111°55′34″W / 41.045°N 111.926°W |
| Spouse(s) | 10 wives |
| Children | 65 children |
| Parents | Samuel Layton Isabella Wheeler |
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Christopher Layton (March 8, 1821 – August 7, 1898) was a Mormon colonizer and Patriarch who founded the cities of Kaysville, Utah, Layton, Utah, and Thatcher, Arizona. Layton, Utah is named after him.
Layton was born at Thorncote Green, Northill, Bedfordshire, England. He joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1842 and a year later emigrated to the United States.
In 1846, Layton joined the Mormon Battalion. In 1852, he moved to Kaysville, Utah Territory.
In 1866-1867 Layton was a member of the Utah Territorial legislature.
From 1883 to 1898, he served as president of the St. Joseph Stake of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Thatcher, Arizona.
Christopher Layton reveals himself as a common man who achieved great success as a business man, a Church man and particularly as a family man, being a father of sixty five children and a husband to ten wives. The courage, perseverance, and faith of the man during trials, sorrow, despair, persecutions and rebuff inspires the reader and marks Layton as one of the great men in pioneer Mormonism.
Christopher Layton was a diamond in the rough, an Englishman by birth. His first practical experience was at the age of seven when he kept crows off the wheat fields for 36c a week.
In 1841, when he was twenty years of age, Latter-day Saint missionaries came to Thorncut. Christopher Layton heard and believed their message and was baptized on January 1, 1842. The following year he was married to Mary Matthews, and in 1843 the two set sail for America with 212 Saints on the ship Swanton led by Elder Lorenzo Snow. They arrived in Nauvoo in April, 1843, and established a home. At Nauvoo they met the Prophet Joseph Smith who shook Brother Layton's hand. He said, "God bless you," so fervently that the words "sank deep into our hearts giving us a feeling of peace such as we never had before." From here on to his final days, the life of Christopher Layton was full of dedication to the Church, loyalty to its leaders, activity in the settlement of the western Zion, and service to his fellow church men.
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Wikipedia