John Singleton and Hannah Binns

Hannah Binns was John Singleton's second wife and my great-great-grandmother. You can learn more about Catherine Creer, John's first wife here.

Like John and Catherine, Hannah was born in Lancashire county in England. Hannah's father was John Binns. Binns' first wife was a Susan Hey. Before she died in 1837 she had three children, Isaac, Ann, who died in 1835 and Ellen. John married Mary Calverley who was Hannah's mother. Calverley is usually interpreted as a place for calves or for calving.

The name Binns comes from old English meaning mangers or bins. Alternative spellings are Binne, Binnes and Byn. The name seems to be most prevalent in Yorkshire, just to the east of Lancashire. Thus an ancient ancestor would have either been a manger-keeper or possibly owned enough cattle that he needed several mangers.

Hannah was born on April 6, 1841. She was named for her paternal grandmother, Hannah Dane (or Dean).

Hannah Binns

John Binns, Hannah's father, was a stone mason in England and thought he could make a better living in America. When she was just six weeks old, her father, mother, sister Ellen and she left England to travel to America. Her brother Isaac remained in England to complete his apprenticeship as a stone mason.

They entered through New York and took a train to St. Louis. The Mississippi was on a rampage and John contracted to build a levee. He had another lucrative contract to build "a sewer from Franklin to Shoto's Pond".

In 1842 a daughter, Sarah was born to John and Mary. Mary Jane was born in 1844, a son Thomas in 1847 and another son, Lewis, in 1849. 1849 was a bad year for the Binns family. A cholera epedimic swept through St. Louis and claimed the lives of Mary Jane, Thomas, Lewis and devastatingly, the mother, Mary.

According to the Singleton book, The Lives and Times of Our Singletons, the Binns family was baptized in Saint Louis in 1848. That's born out by this one IGI link here. There is a modern baptism in 1968 although he was endowed 26 January, 1861.

John was left with just his three daughters, Ellen who was 14, Hannah who was 8 and 7 year-old Sarah. He decided to stay in Saint Louis so his daughters could attend school. Hannah was extremely near-sighted, so she would stay in during recesses to copy the board work. She was always very appreciative of her schooling opportunity that not many girls had in those days.

Around 1850, John married a widow by the name of Jane Creer Snalem. Jane was Catherine Creer's oldest sister. She had been instrumental in introducing the Binns family to the Mormon Church before they were baptized in 1848. Jane's and Catherine's mother died in 1849 in Saint Louis, probably from the same cholera epidemic that claimed Mary. Ellen was 15 by now and had assumed most of the household duties for her half-sisters and father.

Jane brought a step-daughter, Elizabeth, to the Binns' household. John accepted Elizabeth as his own.

1852 saw the Binns family preparing to leave Saint Louis for Utah. They acquired the best equipment they could. They had two new wagons, complete with stoves and beds and plenty of provisions. Each of the girls had a pony of their own, for their comfort and pleasure and s a means of rounding up the loose stock along the way.

Sarah was quoted as saying that the journey to Utah was a pleasure trip. When the girls tired of riding in the wagons they would ride their ponies or even walk. It was said that the worst tragedy they suffered was when one of their pea-fowl, carried in a box or cage under the wagon, drowned during one of the river crossings.

At Fort Bridger John replaced several of his teams with fresh stock.

They arrived in Salt Lake in September, 1852. I can't find the Binns listed in the LDS.org pioneer database or "Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah". "The Lives and Times of Our Singletons" says they travelled in the Captain William Field Company, but that company crossed the plains in 1854, not 1852.

In 1852 there was a pioneer company that did include a William Field, but he was just 17 years old. That company was the Warren Snow company. Could it be that women who were just teen agers at the time might associate the company name with that of a 17 year-old man? The list of people in that company is extremely short, indicating that there were probably many others who weren't on the list.

It is possible that William Field was both the young man in this wagon train as well as being the captain of another company two years later. Captain William Field's company split into a couple of factions over the way he handled the journey. Sometime after delivering the 1854 company, it was noted that Captain Field left for California. That fits with a story our ancestors told that he got John Binns to invest in a business with him, then he sold the business and headed to California with the proceeds.

John and Jane purchased a small house in Salt Lake that their family occupied for 3 years. In 1855 they moved to American Fork to a home that "was just north of where the tabernacle now stands". Shortly after (probably early in 1856) they sold the house in town and bought a farm in the Bottoms from William and Richard Robinson.

The "bottoms" was the low-lying land to the south of American Fork, near Utah Lake.

Could the "bottoms" be in this area, south of American Fork and West of Pleasant Grove?

About a year later, 30 March, 1857, Hannah became a polygamous wife to John Singleton. Hannah was a few days shy of her 16th birthday and John was nearly 32 when they were married in a civil ceremony, just a few months after John participated in the handcart rescue. They were sealed in Salt Lake nearly six months later on September 25 in the offices of the prophet Brigham Young.

It's interesting to note that they were in Salt Lake being sealed at the same time as Catherine was giving birth to her fourth daughter. Catherine would later have two sons and Hannah's first two children were also sons. Thus John had four sons that were in a comparable age group.

Hannah and Catherine became good friends. It was said that "two finer women could not have been found to bless a man's life. Of similar disposition, they were both patient, kind and serene."

Catherine had a house "in town" while Hannah's house was in the bottoms, probably near her parents' home.

The next chapter, Bad Christmas, includes a complete listing of Hannah and John's children.