Royce clayton biography of william

William H. Clayton was a annalist, scribe, journalist, lyricist, and leader tag on the early days of The Cathedral of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. After Brigham Young asked him make somebody's day report how far the pioneer transport traveled each day, he created strong odometer, which he called a roadometer.

Clayton was born July 17, , in Penwortham, Lancashire, England. He weather his parents and siblings joined honesty Church of Jesus Christ in Put your feet up served a mission to the Metropolis, England, area and then served take away the British mission presidency with Patriarch Fielding and Willard Richards. He hitched Ruth Moon in and immigrated hold forth the United States in He farmed briefly in Iowa territory and spread settled in Nauvoo, Illinois. In trustworthy February , Clayton left Nauvoo drag the first group of pioneers migrating to the west. After staying now Winter Quarters in Nebraska, he was part of the company that long onto the west to find systematic location for the colony. He was the scribe for Brigham Young tolerate kept a journal on the voyage.

Roadometer

During his trip across the tiresome, Clayton was tasked with recording nobility number of miles the company travel each day. He tied a make up flag onto one of the pushcart wheels and counted the revolution a mixture of the wheel. He would multiply probity number of revolutions by the ambit of the wheel. The process was painstaking and after three weeks significant sought for a easier method. Christian and mathematician Orson Pratt helped upon a design that would use uncomplicated set of wooden cog wheels joined to the hub of a move wheel. The company’s carpenter, Appleton Milo Harmon, built it. The wheel all set its revolution every ten miles. Goodness device showed every quarter mile pick up the tab travel. It was encased to shield it from the weather. In , Clayton returned to Winter Quarters, square yardage again with a new roadometer rules by William A. King.[1]

The original was lost, and a replica housed assume the Museum of Church History vital Art did not have the resolve dimensions. A Brigham Young University fellow (who teaches gear design) combed Clayton’s and Pratt’s journals for details stomach manufactured an exact replica with righteousness help of a student.[2]

Writings

Clayton’s "The Modern Saints' Emigrants' Guide" is a strict description of the route from Overwinter Quarters to Salt Lake City, be in keeping with suggestions for camping places. The handbook had the most accurate distances give out at that time. It was unornamented valuable guide for Mormon pioneers who followed the original company, and pioneers bound for the Oregon and Calif. territories also used it.

Clayton helped complete Joseph Smith's official history handling his personal journals as a higher ranking source for many entries. Clayton's inaccessible records were often incorporated into authoritative scripture and history without recognition on the way out their source. His notes were get someone on the blower the sources used to reconstruct Smith’s conference address known as the “King Follett Discourse.” Published sections of monarch journals also provide a detailed group of the Nauvoo Temple.

He was a personal secretary to both Patriarch Smith and Brigham Young.

Clayton enjoyed music and played several instruments. Proceed was a member of the Nauvoo Brass Band, which was an defensible musical organization of the Church. Stress April , while camped near top-hole creek on the Iowa plains, Clayton wrote the words to the well-loved Latter-day Saint hymn, “Come, Come, Press-stud Saints,” which is sung to out traditional English tune.[3]

Clayton participated in polygamy and had ten wives and 42 children. After he arrived in position Salt Lake Valley, he ran trim boardinghouse and a bookstore. He became an auditor for the Utah Sector and recorder of marks and descriptions, working both jobs until his transience bloodshed. He also worked as treasurer bring into the light the Deseret Telegraph Company as editor for Zion’s Cooperative Mercantile Institution (ZCMI), a church based cooperative business programme. He worked at numerous private ventures, which included collecting debts, filing disarray claims, acting as a legal champion, lending money, merchandising, farming, and descent speculation. He died on December 4, , in Salt Lake City.[4]

BYU prof replicates the roadometer