John Cartwright Cherrington

John Cartwright Cherrington is one of 14 children born to John Cherrington and Sarah Belcher, both of England. After immigrating to America, the family joined the John Smith Company to travel to Salt Lake Valley with other members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Exhaustive travel conditions, disease, injury, lack of food and medicine, prematurity, and extreme weather were some of the greatest threats to pioneers. John was 9-months-old when the family began the trek west. In a journal of one of the travelers it says, “The child mentioned as dying on July 10 was John Cartwright Cherrington, John and Sarah’s 9 month old baby son. As the company was stopped for lunch, one of the girls was taking care of him. He suddenly got ill and died a short time later. He was buried there before leaving camp.”

John is buried along the Mormon Trail in Wyoming Territory. Three more siblings would die before reaching the Salt Lake Valley.