Charles' Story
Birth: August 28th, 1848 | male | in Southampton, York, New Brunswick, Canada
Death: June 9th, 1854 | 5 years old | by Big Blue in Kansas
Memorial: Stone 4 | left column
Charles Edwin Shelton is the son of Charles Shelton and Rebecca Ann Dow. With a desire to travel to the Great Salt Lake Valley with other members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint, the family joined the James Brown Company.
Exhaustive travel conditions, disease, injury, lack of food and medicine, prematurity, and extreme weather were some of the greatest threats to pioneers. Before they began their journey, two little boys of Charles and Rebecca became ill with cholera (a bacterial disease caused from contaminated water). On June 27, 5-year-old Charles Edwin passed away and was buried near Little Blue, Missouri.
From the journal of Charles Shelton: “Charles Edwin Shelton son of Chs. Shelton and Rebecca Ann Dow; Born: Southampton, N.B. Aug 28th 1848; Died: Little Blue, Missouri 1854" Journal entry "Next my little boy Wm Slason was taken and the last one Charles Edwin died at big Blue and buried there. Thus I left on the way to Zion, My wife and five children."