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David John Barker and His FathersAuthor: Elly Catmull Research: Shyrlane Barker Catmull Note: A special thanks to Elly for bringing to life our ancestors through the research and documentation that has gone on for many years. Tall
and thin with black hair, David John Barker called himself “a jack of all
trades and master of none”. He farmed 40 alkaline acres in Taylorsville, Utah
at the end of the nineteenth century but managed to provide for his eleven
children by running several small businesses on the side—well digging, barn
building, and running a threshing machine to name a few. His son Abe Barker
said, “He dared to do anything and did it well.” By all accounts, David
Barker was a happy, kind, hard-working man who—while not much of a regular
church-going man—opened his home to all the neighborhood kids, providing them
with sports equipment, swings and whirly-gigs, and was known to say, “Right is
right and wrong is no man’s right.”[1] An
obituary published in the Deseret News on Nov 30, 1918 states that David John
Barker, “one of the best known farmers and business men in this part of Salt
Lake county”, had died of stomach cancer the day before. It goes on to say
that “Mr. Barker was born at St. George, Feb. 1, 1865, and a year later was
brought to Taylorsville by his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Barker.” Digging
deeper into David John Barker’s origins through public and church records,
family legends, and even DNA tests reveals a fascinating story. First
of all, there is no actual record of David John Barker’s birth. LDS Church
records for the St. George area do not contain a record of his birth (possibly
because his father, Charles Barker, was not a member yet) and births were not
recorded publicly in Utah until the 1890s.[2],
[3]
The chronologically closest and therefore best source for David’s date of
birth and parentage is found with David John’s baby blessing, recorded in the
North Jordan Ward records in Taylorsville, Utah on October 11, 1866. Besides the
blessing information, the record states that David John Barker was born February
1, 1865, to “Chas. & Fanny Kitching Barker” in St. George, Utah.[4]
Unfortunately, the blessing was given a full year and a half after David’s
birth and 260 miles away, lending the document less credence as an indisputable
source for any information except the blessing. Family
stories indicate that shortly before he was born, David’s parents traveled
from Salt Lake, Utah (where they had recently met and married) down to the St.
George area to live with his mother’s uncle, Wilson Lund.[5]
David was reportedly born at Lund’s home in Shoal Creek (a settlement now
known as Enterprise, Utah about 40 miles north of St. George). Interestingly,
LDS Church records show that Wilson Lund was in St. George helping to build the
temple at the time.[6]
The
autumn before, Judge Elias Smith in Salt Lake City, Utah recorded in his journal
on October 10, 1864: “In the evening, I joined Charles Barker and Fanny
Kitching in matrimony. Both of them natives of England.”[7]
When you count it out, this was only about four months before David was born on
February 1, 1865. His mother, Fannie, was five months pregnant when she married
Charles Barker. Why weren’t they married earlier? Why did Fannie wait until
the middle of her second trimester—well past the month or two it takes to
recognize a pregnancy—to marry the father of her child? Was he the father of
her child? A
family story whispered from generation to generation alleges that a wealthy
gentleman paid Charles Barker “a good sum of money” to marry Fannie and take
her away.[8]
This remarkable rumor coupled with the evidence that Fannie was five months
pregnant when she and Charles Barker were married brings to light all sorts of
doubts and questions. Could this “wealthy gentleman” have something to do
with Fannie’s unborn child? Could he have been the father? How did Charles
Barker get involved? If there really was a “wealthy gentleman”, who was he?
Could the family legend be true, after all? Frances
(Fannie) Kitchen came to the United States from England in 1861—four years
before David’s birth.[9]
Her family lived in Helsington, Westmoreland in northern England and Fannie was
christened there on January 17, 1831—which date serves as a substitute for her
birth since she would have been christened very soon after she was born.[10]
When she was 27 years old, Fannie joined the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints and was baptized on November 2, 1858 in the Sheffield Ward.[11]
Although Fannie was the only one in her immediate family to join the Church, her
mother’s brother—the same Wilson Lund at whose home David was reportedly
born—and her mother’s sister, Ann Lund Hunter, had been baptized and left
England to join the saints many years earlier.[12]
When Fannie arrived in Utah, family stories say she went to live and work at a
boarding house run by her aunt, Ann, and her aunt’s husband, Isaac Hunter.[13] Isaac
and Ann Lund Hunter had been married on November 16, 1840 in Kendal,
Westmoreland, England.[14]
A couple of years later, in 1842, Isaac joined the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints at the same time as Ann’s brother, Wilson Lund.[15]
While Wilson immediately headed to the U.S. to join the saints in Nauvoo,
Illinois, Isaac and Ann remained in Kendal, England and on October 10, 1845,
their eldest son, Jacob, was born. [16],
[17]
When he was just a little more than two years old, in early 1848, the Hunters
joined the first group of saints to leave England bound for the newly
established refuge in western America: Salt Lake valley.[18]
After stopping over in Council Bluffs, Iowa for a year—where they saved up
money for the final leg of their journey to Utah, Ann fell ill, and buried a
6-month-old baby girl—they finally made the trek across the plains in June of 1850. Isaac and Ann were part of the 2nd Division of the Warren Foote Company. William Wall was the captain of the 2nd Division. Peter Maughan was Captain of the 2nd Ten of which Isaac and Ann Hunter were part of. The Warren Foot Company entered the Salt Lake Valley 17, 18, and 26 of September 1850, almost 3 ½ months after starting their trek. Even
though Isaac and Ann Hunter were in poor health and poorer financial condition
when they arrived in Salt Lake, they possessed skills highly valued in the new
city and soon provided well for their family. Isaac was an accomplished stone
mason and helped build the old Salt Lake Theater, the first State Capital
Building at Fillmore, Utah and the Salt Lake Temple as well as several other
local buildings. Even President Brigham Young thought highly of his masonry
skills, recommending, “Get Isaac Hunter. He is the best.” Three weeks after
arriving in the valley, Ann set up housekeeping in an old adobe house and
started feeding boarders.[19] After
one more temporary home, Isaac finally built his family a stone house in 1852 at
500 West and North Temple in Salt Lake City.[20]
Ann continued caring for boarders and it was here that they welcomed Ann’s
niece, Fannie, in 1859.[21]
By 1857, Isaac had amassed enough cash to purchase the Golden Carrie Mine in
Carson Valley while he was there on a colonizing mission.[22]
In the ten years between Isaac and Ann Hunter’s arrival in 1849 and Fannie
Kitchen’s arrival in the Salt Lake Valley in 1859, the Hunters had prospered. Could
Isaac Hunter have been the “wealthy gentleman” who encouraged Charles Barker
to marry the pregnant Fannie? With his personal affluence and high-standing in
the local community, he would have qualified for that role. But why would he
allegedly pay off Charles to take the girl for a bride? Both this rumor and the
hasty trip south—possibly to obscure the short time between the marriage and
the child—suggest that people were trying to cover something up. Did
Charles and Fanny leave Salt Lake merely to hide the fact that their first child
was born too soon? Or did someone else father Fannie’s child and the marriage
was also part of the cover-up? Interestingly, in their remaining photographs
Isaac Hunter and David John Barker share a remarkable resemblance. Could David
be Isaac Hunter’s son? Modern
science gives us a way to find the answer: DNA. Every man has a unique
Y-chromosome which he received from his father and which he will pass to his
sons. This distinctive Y-chromosome can be traced back through the generations
from son to father to grandfather and so on. Occasionally there will be a slight
change—mutation—in the DNA, but usually a man will have the exact same
Y-chromosome as his great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather.[24]
Just like a last name—which is also passed from father to son through
generations—the Y-chromosome can distinguish family lines. But it cannot be
arbitrarily changed like a surname can. A father can refuse to give his son his
last name, but he cannot help giving him his genes. At
certain places in the Y-chromosome, called markers, sequences of DNA are
repeated. It is the number of repetitions that are unique to each man’s
Y-chromosome. Bradley Richard Barker—a direct male-line descendant of David
John Barker (notice the same surname)—and Doug Hunter—a direct descendant of
Isaac Hunter through the eldest son, Jacob—both had their Y-chromosomes
analyzed. By comparing their results, we find that their Y-chromosomes match
exactly, marker for marker.[25],
[26]
While a direct male descendent of Charles Barker’s second son, Charles, should
be analyzed for the sake of comparison, the matching Y-chromosomes of Bradley
Barker and Doug Hunter verify that David John Barker shared the same male DNA as
Isaac Hunter. Isaac
Hunter was most likely David John Barker’s father. Short of an unknown
long-lost journal turning up, there is unfortunately no way to tell what the
exact circumstances were surrounding David’s conception. Fannie Kitchen may
have been an undocumented polygamous wife to Isaac Hunter but left when the
relationship went sour (she was well-known for her temper, after all). There are
many other ways a child can be created and regretted, as well. While
we cannot know the details surrounding David John Barker’s origins, we do know
the facts. His mother was five months pregnant when she married Charles Barker.
A rumor exists in the family about a wealthy gentleman paying off Charles to
marry her—only a legend, after all, but all legends are based in some fact.
And now DNA evidence proves that David John Barker had the same male genes as
Isaac Hunter, genes that are only received by a son from a father. In
spite of the mystery that surrounds David John Barker’s beginnings, he was a
lucky man. His own children used to quote him, saying, “Many hands make light
work.”[27]
And indeed, many people had a hand in making David the good man that he was. Not
only did he have a father who gave him life, he also had a father who raised
him. Although he was not his biological father, and most likely knew it, Charles
Barker brought David John up as his son. He gave him his last name. He left him
1/4 his acreage located in Taylorsville at 4365 South 2200 West to 4100 South after he died. And most importantly, he claimed him as his son.
In every document, from David’s baby blessing to his death certificate,
Charles Barker is listed under “father”. So while David John Barker may have
received his genes from Isaac Hunter, he received everything else that makes
fathers important to a child from Charles Barker. If it weren’t for the
contributions of both men, David John Barker would not have become the man that
he was—that tall man from Taylorsville, Utah who loved his kids, loved life,
and loved work. Sometime between David John Barker’s birth in St. George in early 1865 and his blessing in Taylorsville in the fall of 1866, Charles and Fannie Barker traveled up from southern Utah to settle in the Salt Lake Valley. In 1869, Charles filed papers to homestead 160 acres in Taylorsville, Utah, where he built a one room log cabin.[28] The Barkers lived in this 256 square-foot cabin with one door and no windows for about 20 years, raising their four children there, including David John. One day, the family legend goes, Charles told Fannie that he would build her a nice house. When she laughed incredulously at him, he went out to the backyard and dug up a can full of money. Could this money, in whole or in part, have been that “large sum” from that “wealthy gentleman” that Charles had saved all these years and finally brought out to give Fannie a beautiful new home? The beautiful two-story brick house was built in about 1890 and Fannie and Charles Barker lived there the rest of their lives.[29] [1] Mildred June Lindley, “The Barker Family of Taylorsville Utah”. [2] Utah Government Division of Archives and Record Services “Birth Records, Pre-1898”. http://archives.utah.gov/research/guides/birth.htm#pre [3] Utah Government Division of Archives and Record Services “Birth Records, Pre-1898”. http://archives.utah.gov/research/guides/birth.htm#pre [4] Taylorsville Ward, Salt Lake, Utah – Church Records FHL US/CAN Film [ 27359 ] Record of members [1877]-1923 Page 3, No.12. [5] Lindley. [6] Wesley W. Craig and Roberta Blake Barnum, “Pioneer Indexes Washington County, Utah”. [7] Judge Elias Smith’s Journal. FHL US/CAN Film [ 1697278 ] Items 1 – 3 August 25, 1864-April 9 1867 Journal, Monday, 10 October 1864, Page 17-18. [8] Shyrlane Catmull, family member. [9] Emigration records, European Mission; 1849-1885, 1899-1923 BMR Book #1407, pp 17-44 FHL BRITISH Film [ 025691 ]. [10] Church of England, Chapelry of Helsington, Bishop’s transcripts, 1813-1886. FHL BRITISH Film [97369 Item 2] Baptisms 1831, Entry No. 150. [11] Early Church information file FHL US/CAN Film [ 1750691 ]. [12] Carolyn Coats McDougal, “History of Jacob Hunter”. [13] Lindley. [14] Parish Records Kendal, Westmoreland, England FHL BRITISH Film [ 97370 ]. [15] Baptism Isaac Hunter. Baptism Wilson Lund. FamilySearch indicates Ann Lund was baptized in 1852, but this is probably a typo and so she was most likely baptized at the same time as her husband. [16] McDougal. [17] McDougal. [18] “Mormon Immigration Index” Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2000. [19] McDougal. [20] McDougal. [21] Lindley. [22] McDougal. [23] Lindley [24] “Surname DNA Test”, http://www.dnaheritage.com/ystr.asp. [25] Certificate of Y-chromosome analysis for Bradley Richard Barker, issued by DNA Heritage, August 28, 2008. Certificate of Y-chromosome analysis for Doug Hunter, issued by DNA Heritage, August 28, 2008. [26] Marker DYS464a is one number of repeats less on Doug Hunter’s Y-chromosome than at the same marker on Bradley Richard Barker’s Y-chromosome. On further inquiry, a representative of DNA Heritage, the company that performed the DNA analysis, stated that a slight difference on one marker—especially that particular marker which is usually thrown out in comparisons, anyway—is normal and not an indication of non-relationship. [27] Lindley. [28] Declaratory statements, 1869-1876 Utah (Territory) Probate Court (Salt Lake County) June 4, 1869 Application 502 FHL US/CAN Film [ 1654542 ]. [29] Lindley. You are Visitor
This page was last updated on 11/05/08. |