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Layton, Christopher, president of the St. Joseph Stake of Zion from 1883 to 1898, was the son of Samuel and Isabel Layton, and was born March 8, 1821, in the little town of Thorncut, Northhill, Bedfordshire, England. He was the youngest of the family of five children and was reared in very humble circumstances. Owing to this condition he went to work when about eight years of age for 33 cents a week, to help support the family, gradually advancing to responsible positions as he grew older. During those days there were no schools in the rural districts of England; consequently the education given the children was mainly by their parents. Though education of a temporal benefit was neglected, the spiritual was evidently provided, for at the age of about twenty-one years the doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were accepted as the best, by the young investigator. Together with Mary Matthews, who afterward became his wife, he was baptized Jan. 1, 1842, by Elder Samuel Howard. In the following July they were married at Thorncut, England, where they then lived six months. In January, 1843, he and his wife embarked on the ship "Swanton," to cross the briny deep with a company of Latter-day Saints who emigrated from England to the headquarters of the Church which were then in Illinois. The company numbered 212 souls, led by Elder Lorenzo Snow. They were seven weeks on the waters of the Atlantic, and landed in America in March, 1843. Christopher Layton and wife met the Prophet Joseph Smith for the first time on the banks of the Mississippi river, in Nauvoo, April 12, 1843; a sojourn of a few days was made at the home of Philemon C. Merrill. They, with the Church, passed through all the trying ordeals and persecutions which followed, from 1843 to 1846, in Nauvoo and neighborhood. Along with the other trials, the Lord called Bro. Layton to part with his beloved wife and companion, and he was left penniless to care for an eighteen months old baby. Just as the Saints were moving west the government called on the "Mormons" for five hundred soldiers to fight in the Mexican war. Christopher Layton was one of the first to volunteer. He started on the famous march to California, July 16, 1846, and served in the Mormon Battalion until he was honorably discharged in Los Angeles, Cal., July 15, 1847. After his discharge he was employed by Mr. Sutter, a rancher near Sacramento. While there, gold was discovered, by members of the Mormon Battalion. There being at that time a demand for horses, Christopher Layton returned to Los Angeles and bought some; he took them to San Francisco, where he sold them with considerable profit. The means thus earned he sent to the Bank of England. While at San Francisco, he had the misfortune to break his leg; but as soon as he was able he set sail for England, landing there in March, 1850. After paying his tithing on the money earned, to the presiding Elder (Apostle Orson Pratt), he went home and there received the sad news of the death of his mother, only two weeks before his arrival. Soon after reaching home, he married Sarah Martin; in 1850 he returned to America with his wife and six relatives and forty-six friends, paying the passage for all of them. A two years' stay was made at St. Louis, Mo., and then he continued his journey to Salt Lake City. A part of his means was spent in assisting the new emigrants to cross the plains. He was appointed assistant to Captain Abraham O. Smoot; but as Bro. Smoot took sick, the office of captain fell to the lot of Bro. Layton. The company, consisting of 52 wagons, reached Salt Lake City, Sept. 3, 1852, in a better condition than any company which up to that time had crossed the plains. Some of the first machinery ever brought to Utah was taken there by Christopher Layton. In the spring of 1856, he went to Carson valley, Nevada, where he figured prominently among the Saints, who were endeavoring to build up a Stake of Zion in that part of the country. He returned to Utah in the fall of 1857, and became a permanent settler in Kaysville, Davis county, where he was universally known as a most successful farmer. He was the first man who introduced dry farming in Davis county. On one occasion he raised 21,000 bushels of grain, which is the largest cut of grain ever raised by any one man in Utah in one season, As a financier he had but few equals, and he ranked high as a public-spirited man. He was a life member of the Deseret Agricultural & Manufacturing Society (according to a certificate given him March 1, 1864) and a shareholder in the Weber Canyon Road Company. In 1866 he was appointed brigade quartermaster, in the first brigade of the Nauvoo Legion, in Davis Military District, Utah. He was a stockholder in and a director of the Utah Central Railway, and of the Kaysville Farmers' Union. In 1876 he was elected a director of Zion's Co-operative Mercantile Institution, Salt Lake City. He also served a term in the Territorial legislature (1866-67). Christopher Layton acted as Bishop of Kaysville for seventeen years, and when the Davis Stake of Zion was organized in 1877, he was chosen first counselor to Wm. R. Smith, president of the Stake. He held that position for several years, after which he was called to Arizona to preside over the St. Joseph Stake, which was organized in 1883. He presided there for fifteen years, or until 1898, when he was released on account of ill health. Jan. 29, 1898, he was ordained a Patriarch by Apostle John Henry Smith. In June, 1898, he went to Utah and underwent an operation, from the effects of which he died Aug. 7, 1898, 77 years, 4 months and 29 days old. Christopher Layton was the father of sixty children, of whom fifty-one were living at the time of his death, and all are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. March 8, 1898, a member of the family met and effected a family organization, on which occasion a committee was appointed to hunt up genealogy and write a biography of Christopher Layton.The committee has nearly completed its work, and the book, when published, will show that Christopher Layton was one of the most remarkable men that ever figured in the history of the "Mormon" Church.
Andrew Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia: A Compilation of Biographical Sketches of Prominent Men and Women in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 4 vols. Salt Lake City 1:363. |
Biographies 
