Early life in Birmingham
Elizabeth was born to Edward Blinko a Fire Fender Maker and Elizabeth Elwell in 1823 in Aston, Birmingham in the heart of industrial Britain. Elizabeth was the youngest daughter of four children and was baptised on 28 January 1823 at the Lombard St Baptist Church.
1841 Census
At the 1841 Census Elizabeth age 18 isn’t living at home but is possibly a servant Elizabeth Blencow 15? living with Thomas Grigg and Sarah 23 y and Thomas 1 y Dean Street Lower St Martin Birmingham he a retail brewer/
1848 Thomas C Jones Baptised into LDS
We don’t have a date for when Elizabeth met Thomas Cornforth Jones but we do know he was baptised into the Church of Latter Day Saints on 25 October 1848 at Birmingham. Typically a period of 6 months would elapse after a person joined the church before they were allowed to be baptised. Thomas a Brush Maker -Tinker who travelled the countryside, which may explain his and the families movements between 1849 and 1864. Elizabeth doesn’t appear in the baptism records 1830-1848 so she was probably baptised in the year 1949 or later..Thomas is described in 1851 as a brushmaker and in 1861
Marriage 1849
Married at the Mount Zion Church , Birmingham
1849-1864
This is a period where Thomas and Elizabeth are found in first Birmingham and then Surrey , it the period in which 4 children are born in Birmingham between 1850-1858 (Clarissa Elizabethdied 1858)and one child is 1860 in Surrey.
In 1861 they are living at Worcester Cottages, Newington, Surrey
Emigration 1864
There is a record for the ship Hudson departing from Shadwell Basin, London on Fridau 3rd June 1864 on face value its confusing given other facts we know . It reads
Head of family: Thomas Jones, age 39, Brushmaker, Marley St, Birmingham
Brigham W. Jones age 4
Elizabeth Jones, age 37, Wife
Marintha E. Jones, age 13
Jeter Edw’d Jones, age 11
Franklin J. Jones, age 6
However a note in column beside Thomas is not going. Quite what Thomas told Elizabeth was the reason he wasny coming will probably never be known, but we can assume for some time she believed he was going to join her in Salt Lake City. However when he did travel 4 years later in 1868 it wasn’t Elizabeth and his children he joined. This is explained fully later on in a section of the life of Thomas Cornthorth Jones. The reason in short is, Thomas is a bigamist, he has a wife and children elsewhere in England and has chosen them over Elizabeths Family.
Of note in this Church register for the emigrants is the fare of 21 pounds 10 shillings for the Jones family was in large part paid by the Church emigration assistance fund.
The Voyage and Overland Journey
So Elizabeth was to make the very long journey of 4 months on her own and with 4 children, it was a blessing that Marintha at 15 would have shared the load with her mother.
When you read below the personal experiences of two women in the journey to Zion, remember Elizabeth did this journey with four children, no husband to help and the youngest William just 4 years of age. We are fortunate that LDS Church has a very good collection of the histories of its emigrants, It through the biographies of some, that we can learn the detail of the travel experienced by Elizabeth and children
The personal recollections of Harriet Goble Bird and Mary Ann Ward Webb provide a vivid window into the profound emotional and physical hardships endured during the 1864 Mormon migration from England to Salt Lake City. For both women, the journey began with a painful sacrifice of their comfortable lives in London. Webb describes the initial departure on June 3, 1864, as “a very sad one” where she had to give up a bright future to follow “the urge of the spirit to go to Zion.” Despite the sorrow of leaving family behind, the journey commenced with a striking display of unity and faith. Bird remembers sailing down the River Thames on the ship Hudson “out into the ocean singing, ‘O, Babylon, O Babylon,'” while Webb recalls how Professor George Careless organized a ship choir so proficient that the captain even “gave us permission to practice in his cabin.”
However, the oceanic crossing quickly revealed the stark physical realities of traveling with over a thousand passengers tightly packed into a sailing vessel. Webb details a “long and tedious” 47-day voyage to New York characterized by severe rations of salt pork, hard biscuits, and oatmeal, where passengers had to make their “own arrangements for cooking and serving.” The cramped conditions bred significant tragedy; an epidemic of measles broke out among the children, and Webb, acting as a nurse, observed that “due to the crowded condition of the ship, there was much sickness and death.” Even upon arriving in America, the journey across a nation fractured by the Civil War exposed the immigrants to unexpected dangers. Webb’s account details traveling in open cattle cars showered by cinders, escaping a train derailment, fleeing a forest fire where “trees were blazing on both sides,” and encountering hostile locals who “tried to drown us” due to bitterness against the Mormons.
The hardships accumulated rapidly as the pioneers transitioned from rail to river and finally to the overland trail. After a grueling trek up the Missouri River where drinking muddy water made nearly everyone sick with fear of cholera, the emigrants reached the outfitting posts to begin the continental trek. Bird recalls that she “with several others walked all the way” across the plains because there was simply “no room in the wagons for the healthy ones.” Traveling in Captain Warren Snow’s ox-team company—the very last of the season—the pioneers faced aggressive Native American tribes, forcing a “train of gentiles” to join them for safety, which stretched their traveling line to an immense five miles long.
By the time the migration concluded on November 2, 1864, the physical toll on the company had been catastrophic, with Webb estimating that “of the original company of 1,000 almost 100 died on the way.” The final mountain passes of late autumn left the survivors completely exhausted. Webb described their arrival in the Salt Lake Valley as being “cold, tired, footsore, and weary,” while Bird emphasizes how incredibly welcome the relief wagons sent by Brigham Young were to carry “the sick, aged and wary the rest of the way.” Ultimately, the writings capture a profound sense of relief and spiritual fulfillment rising above the trauma of the trail, concluding with Webb’s deep gratitude just to find “a house and a home and a bed once more” in the land they sacrificed everything to reach.
Salt Lake City
Arrival in Salt Lake City would have been under the impression that Elizabeths husband Thomas C was to join them and so she presumably was assisted and supported by the church in accomodation etc. The family disappear in the 1870 census except for Marintha who hi a servant in a home in Salt Lake City.
By 1870 The family would have known they were abandoned by their father but because the Church fully supported polygamous marriage they may well have continued to get support as a family.
Remarkably, Elizabeth, who arrived in Utah in 1864 as a 38-year-old woman with four children and no husband, had by 1880 — at age 50 — established herself as a schoolteacher on 8th East Street, Salt Lake City. If fact Elizabeth ran this school as well as teaching in it. This speaks to a woman of intelligence, education, and considerable determination. She was not dependent on Thomas. She had built an independent life and livelihood. In pioneer Utah, women running schools were respected community figures. While Thomas had taken a third wife in 1870 its clear Elizabeth did not subscribe to the notion of Polygamy, and was probably from the point Thomas did not emigrated with her in 1864 considering herself separated.
Marintha is 28, living at home, listed as Daughter.
Marintha — the eldest child who crossed the plains aged 13 in 1864 — is still with her mother at 28 and unmarried. But she has a six-year-old daughter, Clarissa.
Death Obituary
The Secret Thomas Cornforth Jones 1825-1887 Was Carrying in 1864
Thomas Cornforth Jones — his middle name being his mother’s maiden name, Sarah Cornforth (1795–1864). This is a common Victorian naming convention and explains why he appears in some records simply as “Thomas Jones” — a name so common as to be almost untraceable without the middle name.
Thomas is researched in a family tree by Gary Goviat on Ancestry this provides sensational findings about Elizabeths husband who at the last minute pulled out of the emigration voyage in June 1864.
Timeline of his life events tell a lot about him that Elizabeth was not aware.:
- 22 Jul 1849 — Thomas marries Elizabeth Clarissa Blinko at Mount Zion Chapel, Birmingham
- 1850–1860 — Four children born to Elizabeth in Birmingham: Marintha, Jeter Edward, Clarissa Elizabeth (died 1858), Franklin Thomas, William Brigham
- 1861 — Family residing in Newington, Surrey, England — not Birmingham. They had moved to London area.
- April 1863 — Birth of son Francis John Jones in Tiverton, Devon
- 10 Jan 1864 — Death of Thomas’s mother Sarah Cornforth in Birmingham
- January/February 1865 — Thomas marries Eliza Jesson (born 1831) in Birmingham
The timeline makes something unavoidable clear. Eliza Jesson’s children begin appearing well before the formal marriage date. Ellen Jones is born ~1857 in Pilton, Devon. Francis John Jones born April 1863 in Tiverton, Devon. These are places entirely separate from where Elizabeth and the Birmingham children were living.
Thomas had a second family in Devon while still married to Elizabeth in Birmingham. This is why he did not board the Hudson on 3 June 1864. Elizabeth was booked to sail to Utah with the children of his first family — and Thomas had entanglements in England he could not simply walk away from. His mother died in January 1864. Eliza Jesson was pregnant or had just given birth. The register notation “Not Going” was not cold feet about Zion. It was a man caught between two families.
What Happened Between 1864 and 1868
The timeline fills in those four missing years with extraordinary detail:
- January/February 1865 — Thomas marries Eliza Jesson in Birmingham — just eight months after Elizabeth sailed for Utah
- 27 Feb 1866 — Twin daughters Sarah Elizabeth and Alice Elizabeth born to Eliza — both die 27 Jul 1866, aged five months
- 7 Mar 1867 — Son John Heber Jones born to Eliza in Birmingham
- 27 Feb 1868 — Daughter Eliza Celestial Jones born to Eliza in Birmingham
- 14 Aug 1868 — Thomas departs England
- 19 Aug 1868 — Sons John Heber and Francis John both die — on the voyage or immediately after departure
- 2 Sep 1868 — Thomas arrives in Utah
- 10 Sep 1868 — Daughter Eliza Celestial dies in Salt Lake City, just eight days after arrival
So Thomas arrived in Utah with Eliza Jesson having just lost three children in rapid succession — two sons aged one and five, and an infant daughter who died within a week of reaching Salt Lake City. The grief of that crossing is almost unimaginable. Eliza Jesson had buried twin daughters in 1866, then lost two more children in August 1868 and a third days after arrival. She would go on to have more children in Utah — Catherine Mary Louise “Aunt Louie” (1869), Charlotte Anne “Lottie” (1873) — before dying in 1895.
The Polygamy Architecture in Utah
Once in Utah, Thomas built a fully polygamous household:
- 2 Feb 1869 — Formally married/sealed to Eliza Jesson in Salt Lake City
- 27 Jun 1870 — Married Mary Orgill (born 1848, died 1943 — aged 95!)
- 1870 Census — Residing in Salt Lake City Ward 20
- 28 Mar 1878 — Married Rosetta Robinson (born 1799 — aged 79!) at the Endowment House
- Also listed: Sarah Brittell (born 1831) as a spouse
So by 1878 Thomas had at minimum four wives in Utah: Eliza Jesson, Mary Orgill, Rosetta Robinson, and Sarah Brittell — plus Elizabeth Clarissa still living independently on 8th East Street teaching school, officially a “widow.”
The name Rosetta Robinson, born 1799, is extraordinary — she was 79 when sealed to Thomas in 1878. This was a relatively common practice in the LDS Endowment House — older women being sealed to active Church men to secure their celestial status. She died in 1882, aged approximately 83.
Mary Orgill (1848–1943) is the most significant plural wife in terms of family continuity — she lived to 95 and bore Thomas children including Heber Lorenzo (1871–1938), Charlotte “Lottie” (1873–1942), and Julia Kate (1885–1970). Julia Kate was born in 1885 — Thomas was 60 years old, and would die just two years later in 1887.
Timeline
| Event | Date/Location | Details |
| Full Name | Elizabeth Clarissa Blinko | |
| Birth Date | 28 Jan 1823 | |
| Birth Place | Birmingham, Warwickshire | |
| Census UK 1841 (6 Jun) | 6 Jun 1841, Dean Street Lower St Martin Birmingham | possibly 41c Elizabeth Blencow 15 niece living with Thomas Grigg n Sarah 23 y and Thomas 1 y |
| Marriage | 22 Jul 1849, Birmingham, Warwickshire | To Thomas Comforth Jones b. 1825 Gloucestershire |
| Birth of Daughter Marintha Althera | 20 Jun 1850, Birmingham | |
| Census UK 1851 | 30 Mar 1851 Birmingham St Marys | Thos Janes 26 Head Brush Maker Elizabeth Janes 24 Wife Marianthe Althera 9 Mo Daughter |
| Birth of Son Jeter Edward | 9 Feb 1852, Birmingham, Warwickshire | |
| Birth of Son Franklin Thomas | 21 Sep 1857, Birmingham, Warwickshire | |
| Birth of Son William Brigham | 9 Feb 1860, Walworth, Surrey | |
| Census UK 1861 (7 Apr) | 7 Apr 1861, Worcester Cottages, Newington Surrey | Thomas Jones 36 Head Painting Brush Maker Elizabeth Jones 34 Wife Marrintha Jones 10 Daughter Jeter E Jones 9 Son Franklin T Jones 3 Son Brigham W Jones |
| Emigrated a Blencowe variant | 1864, Utah | Dep 9 Aug 1864 Arrived in Uta on 20 Oct 1864.Utah, Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel Database, 1847-1868 |
| Census US 1880 (1 Jun) | 1 Jun 1880, 8th East St.,Salt Lake City, Utak | Elizbeth Jones 50 Widow Keeping School Marintha Jones 28 Daughter Clarissa Jones 6 Granddaughter |
| Occupation | 1881, Salt Lake City, Utah | Schoolteacher |
| US Census 1910 | 22A South Hurdt , Salt lake City | Geo H Austin 69 Head Teamster Marintha A Austin 59 Wife Arnold Giles 14 Adopted Elezabeth Joner 84 Mother-in-law Melhaolia Collins 2 Orphan Flora M Collins 4 Orphan |
| US Census 1920 | Naylor Avenue, Salt Lake City | Mirintha A Austin 69 Head Elizabeth M Jones 94 Mother |
| Death | 5 Apr 1920, Salt Lake City, Utah |
Descendants
Sources
- Ancestry and FamilySearch
- Daphne Austen Blencowe Database
- The research of descendant RayKayb Dance
- Brigham Young Universty archives
- The History of Mary Ann Ward Webb and Her Diary of the Journey to Utah (1864)
- The overland journey of the William Hyde Company in 1864
- Autobiography of Harriet Goble Bird
- The Family Tree of Thomas Cornfoth Jones by Gary Oviatt Ancestry