Joseph Chadwick and Sarah Goode Marshall

Sarah Goode Marshall Chadwick

Recently, I received a copy of the Ben and Sarah Walker Chadwick History, written by Bill Horten. Benjamin Chadwick is the oldest of Joseph and Mary Chadwick's children.  From this history I gleaned important and interesting details that gives insight into Joseph and Sarah's relationship. 

This is what I have learned about Joseph Chadwick from the History of Benjamin Chadwick:

"According to family legend, at age 15 Ben accompanied his father Joseph to the gold fields of California in 1852. According to several life sketches (short LDS biographies) of Ben Chadwick, they traveled down the Atlantic Ocean by sailing ship and then walked overland across the Isthmus of Panama to the Pacific Ocean where they traveled by another sailing ship up to San Francisco. According to a life sketch, they wound up in a place called Hangtown which is now Placerville, California. After two and one half years, Benjamin and his father were to meet up with the rest of the family in the Utah Territory or what the Mormons referred to as Zion. Instead, his father Joseph bought some land in Ogden City. Life sketches tell that Joseph Chadwick also built a two room log house in a new settlement to the west in Weber County called Slaterville. They are listed in an 1856 Utah Territory Census. When his mother Mary and other children did not arrive in Utah from Pennsylvania, Joseph assumed they were dead and married widow Sarah Goode Marshall. Ben moved down to Salt Lake City where he worked as a guide."

Mary Whitehead Chadwick

"At age 22, Ben Chadwick had returned to Pennsylvania in 1859 to fetch his mother and younger siblings whom he had received word that they were still living there. It seems that Mary Chadwick was not able to raise the money to travel west with the children and Ben and his father had presume that she and the children had died. ... According to LDS Church History, Ben arranged for his mother and siblings to travel west in June 1860 with John Smith`s Wagon Company where oxen teams pulled covered wagons and he joined the more physically enduring handcart company of Daniel Robinson . Ben worked as a pilot on what was the ninth hand cart company of Mormon pioneers."

As you can imagine, this turn of events would have a dramatic effect on the relationship between Joseph and Sarah Goode who by the time Mary and her children arrived, Sarah had given birth to her second child by Joseph. (1) William Joseph Chadwick, born 6 Oct 1857, (2) Charles Frederick Chadwick, born 6 Aug 1860.



William Joseph Chadwick





Charles Frederick Chadwick


A Decree of Divorcement granted to Mary Whitehead 

Before the Honorable Peter Maugham,

Probate Judge, dated February 28, 1862.