Dalley Family

Dalley Family

Isaac & Marilla

Isaac & Laurena

The Dalley families in Summit, Utah began with the family of William Dalley. William Dalley had emigrated from the town of Leominster, Herefordshire, England. William was christened as an infant in the parish church of Leominster (pronounced "Lemster") on April 22, 1821. He was only eleven years old when his father, also named William, died. His widowed mother converted to the new Mormon faith, and at about age 18, William preceded his mother and younger siblings to America; then he wrote urging them to join him, which they did.

The whole family became active in the new Mormon faith while the church was still being organized in upper New York, and they lived through the bloody events and mob opposition of those early years in Illinois and Missouri. During that time they met the Hillman family and eventually William Dalley married the elder daughter, Mandana Hillman. Her father, Mayhew Hillman, had been named a church counselor by Joseph Smith on June 28, 1838, but his service to the church was cut short by his early death little more than a year later, leaving his "family of four children living" according to the autobiography by his eldest son, Silas Hillman.

In 1853, a year after arriving in Salt Lake City, William Dalley and Mandana helped found and settle small farming villages in Southern Utah, including a village named Summit  for its location on a rise a few miles north-east of Cedar City. William served as mayor of Summit as well as bishop for many years, and he performed the civil wedding ceremony for several of his own children.

Isaac Fielding Langford's two wives came from the Dalley family in Summit, and it is this family who provided Isaac Fielding's descendants with an ancestor who came to America on the Mayflower. Mandana Hillman, wife of William Dalley, mother of Marilla Dalley (Isaac Fielding's first wife) and grandmother of Laurena Dalley (Isaac's second wife, and my grandmother) was a descendant of Henry Samson who sailed on the Mayflower as a 16-year old boy in 1620. The path from me to Henry Samson (through Mandana Hillman) has been accepted by the General Society of Mayflower Descendants. Persons who are descendants of Mandana Hillman and wish to become members of the Mayflower Society must provide documentation showing they are descended from Mandana Hillman or to a descendant of Mandana who has been accepted by the Mayflower Society. They do not need to give documentation for the relationships shown in the pedigree of Mandana Hillman.

Norma Leigh Rudinsky,
Descendant of Mae Langford Leigh
25 March 2009