Mary's Story
Birth: July 1st, 1854 | female | along the Platte River in Nebraska
Death: July 15th, 1854 | Infant | along the Mormon Trail in Nebraska
Memorial: Stone 4 | left column
Mary Butterworth is the daughter and the fourth child born to Edmund Butterworth and Betty Fielding from England. The family immigrated to America and joined the William Adam Empey Company to trek with other members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to the Great Salt Lake Valley. Betty was expecting a baby when they began the journey.
In July, Betty gave birth to a daughter named Mary. A family history indicated that the baby was born premature. The history records, “the strain of the difficult journey and poor diet took its toll when her fourth child, a girl they named Mary, born along the Platte River on the Great Plains of Nebraska. Both Betty and her infant lay critically ill on the wagon bed as she begged her sister, thirteen-year-old Alice, to promise that she would look after Betty’s husband and two-year-old son John.
Betty Fielding Butterworth, along with her infant daughter Mary, died July 15, 1854. “They were buried by the roadside in an unmarked grave, the location of which is not known to this day.”