Abdon is a remote rural hamlet sitting on the slopes of Brown Clee Hill overlooking Corve Dale which separates it from the southern side of Wenlock Edge. Called Abetune in the Domesday Book (1086) the settlement itself then comprised only 9 households, and in the next 700 years the population hardly changed. Approaching 1800 there were maybe only 30 households across the extensive rural parish. The River Corve flows south-west towards Ludlow where it joins the River Teme. From there it then flows South and East across to Tenbury Wells before joining the Severn south of Worcester. Nearby are the villages of Clee St Margaret and Stoke St Milborough, and an Iron-Age hill fort at Nordy Bank. The hamlet lies some 10-12 miles distant from each of Ludlow to the south-west, Bridgnorth basically east, Much Wenlock to the north and Church Stretton to the north-west across the River Corve at Beambridge (the bridge was built in 1811 and is today a listed structure).
Goings-on in the World did not affect the citizens of Abdon much, who were far more interested in the weather and the seasons and in generally keeping alive. But in the mid 1800s events across the Atlantic Ocean in America were about to change things for at least one family in Abdon (and probably many more around). Mormon Apostles crossed the Atlantic at the end of the 1830s and started preaching across the country, drawing large crowds and baptising many converts in local rivers.
Life for Elizabeth Bray was to take an unexpected turn when in March 1818 in Neenton she married James Boyer Shelley. James had been born in nearby Chetton in 1792 to James Boyer and Martha Shelley who were also farmers. It seems that both of James’ parents died before he was ten leaving him to be brought up on the farm run by his grandparents. Twenty-three years later in the 1841 Census life was still fairly as expected. James and Elizabeth appear therein as farmers in Farmcott near Claverley with 5 of their 7 children in residence – the elder two – Thomas and Martha – were “in service” at nearby farms. There are suggestions that they were quite a well-off family with time to think about religion. In 1841 the Mormon Brigham Young had started preaching throughout the England and Wales border country and Elizabeth was experimenting with religion, first with the Anglicans and then with the Methodists where she found no satisfaction. Other preachers came to the area once Young had returned to Ohio in 1844 and in 1848 it seems that somewhere here Elizabeth was shown a Book of Mormon by a neighbour. An Elder was invited to come and preach at their farm and Elizabeth and her son Thomas were persuaded and went to the Chapel at Bridgnorth to be Baptised in the River Severn in December 1848. The eldest son William was similarly baptised the following March and by July William had been ordained a Priest and then an Elder.
That year Thomas was asked to establish a Church in Claverley and for short periods he also officiated at Bridgnorth where the existing congregation had lapsed. Quickly the rest of the family – other than Martha who had married a Tailor in Leamington Spa in 1848 and was by 1851 living in Kings Norton in Birmingham – were also baptised into the faith,
It is said that those who left the accepted religions and accepted the Mormon faith were then shunned and ostracised in their villages. This must have made the decision to leave England and head for the new Zion easier for those involved. James and Elizabeth, William, his wife and 4 children, Thomas and his new wife (married in Claverley in early January 1851) and the remaining 4 brothers and sisters (14 in all, excluding Martha) began to plan to leave. They sailed on the ship Ellen Maria from Liverpool around 27 January 1851 experiencing strong wind early in the trip but by 11 February had cleared the Irish Sea and reached New Orleans 68 days later on 6 April 1851 without further incident. They then boarded the Aleck Scott, a large Steamer setting off on 9 April up the Mississippi River heading for St Louis.
On 13 April tragedy occurred when it was reported in the Mormon Millennium Star newspaper that Elizabeth Shelley (nee Bray) was drowned outside Memphis as she was pulled into the waters while attempting to draw a bucket of water. Her body was never recovered. The remainder of the family successfully travelled on, reaching Utah where it is said that Elizabeth’s husband, James Boyer Shelley, laid one of the first logs in the new settlement of American Fork. We have a lot of Mormon relatives confirmed by DNA.
But Came They All to Birmingham 