In 1653, a branch of the Moon family of the Fylde coast made the radical decision to join the newly-formed Religious Society of Friends. Edward Moon and his sons faced fines, harassment and imprisonment at Lancaster Castle for this decision but remained steadfast in their Quaker beliefs and close to their leader George Fox. The Moon family continued the trend of religious dissidence when another branch converted to Mormonism in 1837 and set sail for New York on 6th June 1840, becoming the first British Latter-day Saints to emigrate to America. There, the Mormon Moons endured angry mobs, witnessed the assassination of their prophet and became pioneers, eventually settling in the wasteland of the Great Salt Lake Valley in modern-day Utah.

1. Brandon Reece Taylorian
Associate Lecturer at UCLan and
Lancaster University
brtaylorian@uclan.ac.uk
THE MORMON &
QUAKER MOONS OF
LANCASHIRE:
2024 History Seminar
The Quaker Meeting by Egbert
van Heemskerck, circa 1685.
Stories of Religious Conversion & Migration

2. A Quakers' Meeting by Egbert
van Heemskerck, circa 1685.
THE QUAKER MOONS OF
LANCASHIRE

3. M O O N FA M I LY O F T H E F Y L D E
¥ Records of the Moon family on the Fylde
coast in Lancashire can be traced back to
1520 as farmers in the hamlet of Hollowforth.
¥ The Moon family also owned and cultivated
land surrounding the village of
Woodplumpton in the 16th century and were
one of the prominent families in the area.
¥ Edward Moon, his wife Isabel and their three
sons John, Thomas and Edward converted
from the Church of England to the Religious
Society of Friends in 1653.
¥ Known amongst themselves as Friends and
to outsiders as Quakers, originally a derisive
term, this group followed the teaching of
George Fox that it was possible to have a
direct experience of Christ without the aid of
ordained clergy.
St Anne's, Woodplumpton by
Edwin Robert Beattie, 1891
George Fox, the principal early leader
of the Quakers by unknown artist, 1868

4. Lancaster Castle Gateway by
Hume of Lancaster, circa 1820.
I M P R I S O N M E N T O F T H E M O O N S
¥ The Moons suffered as a result of their
conversion from fines and tithes, harassment
from authorities and Church leaders and even
imprisonment.
¥ In 1654, Edward Moon was imprisoned at
Lancaster Castle alongside his son John and
twenty-five other Friends for proselytising their
beliefs.
¥ EdwardÕs other son Thomas was imprisoned at
Lancaster Castle in 1659 as was his brother
Edward who was fined for not paying his tithe
for being Quaker.
¥ In 1658, John Moon was arrested and
imprisoned for a second time and then again for
a third time in 1660. In 1662, John was distrained
of goods worth £15 19 shillings for non-payment
of tithe. John was distrained again in 1683.

5. R E V E L AT I O N U N T O J O H N M O O N
¥ From his prison cell at Lancaster Castle during his
second imprisonment, John Moon claimed to
have received a revelation in the form of a series
of visions from Jesus Christ in April 1658 and
wrote the revelation down in a tract.
¥ The revelation is full of powerful and thought-
provoking imagery. It involves Moon being taken
on a journey by God. First, Moon is shown the
lowliness of human beings who are described as
naked and vulnerable and limited. Moon was
given the Òbook of lifeÓ and commanded by God
to counsel the faithful people.
¥ God then raised Moon up to the top of a holy
mountain where he is handed a shining spear that
could emit blinding light that Moon is directed to
use against those who make war with God.
¥ In the final part, Moon is taken upwards further to
a holy city where he is brought before a child
enthroned beside a lion the child tames while
watching over the earth.
The Revelation of
Jesus Christ unto John
Moone by John
Moon, 1658.
ÒAnd the Lord God showed me a narrow and a
straight way, and he led me therein, and some
others with me, and I saw a city before me, and
the Lord brought me through great tribulations to
that City, and in that City there was a child which
had a throne above the earth and walked in it; and
there was a lion with that child, but he was made
subject, and the child had power and dominion
over the lion, and some few was brought to that
city and saw it, but it was through great
tribulations; but there was none could come to
that child which was in the throne but through
death, be that readeth let him understand.Ó
This is just one of
several works written
by John Moon that
secured him a
leadership role in the
early Quaker
movement.

6. J O H N M O O N & S WA R T H M O R E H A L L
¥ John Moon became close friends
with George Fox, acting as one of
the witnesses to his wedding to
Margaret Fell in 1669 following the
death of her first husband.
¥ Fell was one of FoxÕs most ardent
supporters and lived at Swarthmoor
Hall near Ulverston, Cumbria. Fell
has become known amongst
historians as the ÒMother of
QuakerismÓ.
¥ Swarthmore Hall became the
unofficial headquarters of the
Religious Society of Friends in its
early years. The hall is still owned
and run by the modern Quaker
movement today.
Swarthmore Hall by George Lehman, mid-1800s.
Depiction of the marriage of George Fox to
Margaret Fell outside Swarthmore Hall in 1669.

7. Off Barbados by James Edward
Buttersworth, circa 1845.
T H E M O O N S S P R E A D Q U A K E R I S M
¥ In the late 1650s, John Moon
accompanied George Fox on his
preaching tours in Dorset, Norfolk and
Wales. Moon was noted as a fierce
debater and orator.
¥ Moon was known for his debates with
Welsh Puritan Vavasor Powell, another
Puritan named John Prosser and
Arminian Baptist preacher Hugh Evans.
¥ In 1671, John Moon accompanied
George Fox and other prominent
Friends to the West Indies and Barbados
to preach Quakerism.
¥ One of the aims of my research is to
have John Moon recognised as a
member of the Valiant Sixty as one of the
ÔFirst Publishers of TruthÕ.

8. T H E W R I T I N G S O F PA U L M O O N
¥ JohnÕs nephew Paul Moon
followed in his uncleÕs footsteps
by becoming a prominent Friend
from the early 1680s.
¥ After being distrained of goods
worth £3 9 shillings and
imprisoned at Lancaster Castle,
JohnÕs brother Thomas (PaulÕs
father) fled Lancashire for Bristol
in the 1660s with his two sons
Paul and John and set up a
leatherworks business in that city.
¥ Paul Moon wrote his first Quaker
tract in 1681 while imprisoned in
Newgate gaol in Bristol and his
second in 1693.
GodÕs Controversy by Paul
Moon, 1693.
Newgate gaol, Bristol,
18th century
A Visitation of Love by Paul
Moon, 1681.

9. Quaker Meeting by Egbert van
Heemskerck II, late 17th century.
Q U O T E S F R O M J O H N M O O N
ÒThe Lord was with me in
prison and made me more to
rejoice than those that have
abundance of riches of corn
and wine and oil.Ò Ð reflections
from John Moon while
imprisoned, 1676.
ÒObedience unto whatever
Christ Jesus the light maketh
known unto you, and so will the
secrets of the Lord be with you,
and revealed unto you.Ò Ð
Revelation of Jesus Christ unto
John Moone, 1658.
ÒIf we walk in the light as he is in
the light we have fellowship one
with another, and the blood of
Jesus Christ his Son clenseth us
from all sin.Ò Ð True Light Hath
Made Manifest Darknesse, 1657.

10. A Quaker Meeting with a Self Portrait
by Egbert van Heemskerck II, 1678.
Q U O T E S F R O M PA U L M O O N
ÒThis is the Example of the true
Ministers of Jesus Christ now at
this day, which they mind and
follow, for it is not Carnal Ends
nor Self Interest, but the Glory
of God that is in their eyes, and
the eternal welfare of the Souls
of all.Ò Ð A Visitation of Love to
All People, 1681.
ÒYou have been making a
large profession of God and
Religion in words, but in
works deny him.Ò Ð GodÕs
Controversy, 1693.

11. The Marriage of William Penn and Hannah Callowhill at the Friends'
Meeting House, Bristol, 1696 by Ernest Board, 1916.
FAT E O F PA U L & J O H N M O O N
¥ John Moon died at the age of 69 in
November 1689 at his home Carr House
near Garstang and was buried in the nearby
Quaker burial ground he helped establish
twenty years prior.
¥ As for Paul Moon, he is recorded in 1696 as
a witness to the marriage of fellow Friend
William Penn and his second wife Hannah
Callowhill in Bristol.
¥ Penn would go on to emigrate to America
when he founded the state of Pennsylvania.
¥ While the exact fate of Paul Moon is
presently unknown, he must have lived to at
least 1712 as he was given two pieces of
gold by Hannah CallowhillÕs father Thomas
in his will when he died that year.

12. R E S O U R C E S F E AT U R I N G Q U A K E R M O O N S
Lancashire Quakers and
the Establishment 1660 Ð
1730 by Nicholas Morgan,
1993.
Yeomen, Craftsmen, Merchants,
The Moons of Amounderness
and Leylandshire by Ronald
Cunliffe Shaw, 1963.
The Quakers 1656Ð1723: The
Evolution of an Alternative
Community by Richard C. Allen
and Rosemary Moore, 2018.
Early Stages of the Quaker
Movement in Lancashire by
Benjamin Nightingale, 1921.
The Second Period of
Quakerism by William
Braithwaite, 1919.

13. THE MORMON MOONS OF
LANCASHIRE
The Saints Crossing the Mississippi
by Grant Romney Clawson.

14. T H E M O O N FA M I LY
¥ In around 1727, a branch of the
Moons headed by Henry Moon
broke off from their roots on the
Fylde coast and travelled south
of Preston to settle in the village
of Eccleston.
¥ There, the Moons established
themselves as husbandmen and
landowners and had amassed a
sizeable portfolio of property by
the turn of the 19th century.
¥ Some of the Moons had already
converted to Methodism by
1800 so the family were no
strangers becoming
Nonconformists.
St Mary the Virgin Church,
Eccleston.
Some of the original Mormon Moon converts
Alice Moon
(1779Ð1841)
Hannah Moon
(1817Ð1899)
Hugh Moon
(1815Ð1870)
Henry Moon
(1819Ð1894)
Margaret Moon
(1820Ð1870)
Ruth Moon
(1817Ð1894)
One of the Moon family homes at
Eccleston.

15. B E G I N N I N G S O F A N E W R E L I G I O N
¥ On a spring day in 1820 in upstate New
York, Joseph Smith Jr., then aged
fifteen, claimed to have experienced a
theophany of God the Father and Jesus
Christ while praying in a wooded area
that is today called by Mormons the
Sacred Grove.
¥ Three years later, Smith claimed to have
been led by an angel named Moroni to
find a set of buried golden plates that
he was tasked with translating from an
ancient language. The result of this
translation was the Book of Mormon.
¥ At the time, America was undergoing
the Second Great Awakening, a
Protestant religious revival.
The First Vision by Del Parson.

16. M I S S I O N A R I E S A R R I V E I N P R E S T O N
¥ In July 1837, Heber C. Kimball and six other
missionaries first step foot in England. It had
been their intention since setting off to
travel from Liverpool to Preston.
¥ The missionaries worked fast as just ten days
after arriving, they were already performing
baptisms in the River Ribble, the first Latter-
day Saint baptisms to take place outside
America.
¥ Many of the converts were non-conformists
such as Methodists. Non-conformist leaders
were not best pleased with the Mormons
and many preached against the Mormon
religion in Preston and published tracts
attempting to expose its errors.
¥ Despite such opposition, the congregation
at Preston survived and is today the oldest
continuous Latter-day Saint ward in the
world.
Heber C. Kimball (1801Ð1868)
Old Tram Bridge, Preston
The Cockpit, Stoneygate, Preston
An Exposure of Mormonism by
Richard Livesey, 1838

17. F I R S T V O YA G E O F B R I T I S H S A I N T S
¥ On 6 June 1840, fifteen members of the
Moon family stepped aboard the
Britannia at the docks at Liverpool. They
had decided to emigrate to America to
gather with other Mormons who were
constructing the New Jerusalem.
¥ Elder John Moon was selected by Elders
Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball as
head of this first organised company of
Saints to cross the Atlantic.
¥ This voyage was the first of its kind and
was not officially sponsored by the
Church, only later in the summer of 1840
did such official voyages begin to set sail.
Embarkation Of The Saints At Liverpool by Ken B. Baxter.

18. November 1837
A branch of the Moon family of
Eccleston and Wrightington
convert to Mormonism.
6 June 1840
Fifteen Moons set sail from
Liverpool aboard the Britannia.
17 July 1840
The Moons arrive in New York,
undergo quarantine and John
Moon writes a letter back to
missionaries in England.
16 April 1841
The Moons traverse arrive at
Nauvoo after traversing
Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and
Illinois by foot and steamboat.
28 May 1850
Henry and Lydia Moon leave
their home in southern Iowa
and begin the journey to Utah.
2
1
3
8 October 1850
The Moons arrive in the
Great Salt Lake Valley.
4

19. T H E C A L L T O G AT H E R
¥ Hugh Moon wrote the following diary
entry on 6th June 1840:
¥ ÒThese men told us that God required
all his people to gather on the land of
America because he was about to
destroy all the wicked and ungodly
from off the face of the earth; after the
death of my father, we sold all our
property that we could not take with us,
to start to the land of America. When
we returned to the ship we found Elders
Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball
aboard. They had stretched a curtain
across our cabin and commenced
blessing the company.Ó
Dan Jones Awakens Wales by Clark Kelley Price.

20. J O H N M O O N Õ S L E T T E R
¥ Once the company reached New York a
month and a half later, Elder John Moon
wrote a letter to missionaries back in
England to describe the hellish journey
they had endured:
¥ ÒOn the 8th [there] was a very high
wind and water came over the
bulwarks all that day and all [were]
sick. I [had] never saw such a day in all
my days. Some crying, some vomiting;
pots, pans, tins and boxes walking in
all directions; the ship heaving the sea
roaring and so we passed that day. I
was sick and heaved up about 5 or 6
times and was 3 or 4 days as though I
was half dead.Ó
Close Hauled in a Gale by Fitz Henry Lane.

21. R E A C H I N G N A U V O O
¥ After the company had undergone quarantine in New
York City, they headed west by taking a steamboat to
Philadelphia where they stayed for a brief time.
¥ Then, they travelled to Pittsburgh and further still to
Allegheny City where they stayed for six weeks.
¥ One of the older members of the family, Thomas Moon,
died of bilious fever in October 1840.
¥ The Moons were soon after faced with the devastating
news that they would be forced to stay in Allegheny
until spring 1841 due to the river being too low to take a
boat which would delay their arrival at Nauvoo.
¥ Almost a year after they had first left England, the Moon
family took a steamboat up the Mississippi River from St
Louis, finally reaching Nauvoo on 16th April 1841.
Winter Quarters by C. C. A. Christensen.

22. Come Let Us Rejoice by Walter Rane.
T H E M O O N S & P L U R A L M A R R I A G E
¥ In April 1843, in a secret marriage
ceremony, William Clayton, who was at the
time already married to Ruth Moon,
married his sister-in-law Margaret Moon.
¥ Joseph Smith himself presided over the
ceremony and encouraged William and
Margaret to marry.
¥ Crucially, this Mormon plural marriage
took place before Joseph SmithÕs
revelation on 12th July 1843 that
advocated for polygamy.
¥ Clayton and MoonÕs marriage added to
the polygamist tradition within
Mormonism which would go on to cause
much controversy for the Church over the
coming decades.

23. P L U R A L M A R R I A G E D R A M A
¥ Perhaps surprisingly, Ruth Moon accepted her
husbandÕs new marriage to her sister Margaret.
¥ However, the same cannot be said for Aaron Farr,
the man to whom Margaret had been engaged
when she married Clayton. Farr had been on a
mission preaching the Mormon religion when the
ceremony between Moon and Clayton took place.
¥ When he returned and Margaret told him she had
been married by Smith and was pregnant was
ClaytonÕs child, Farr was distraught and got several
others on his side to charge Clayton with
Òimmorality and seduction.Ó
¥ News of the plural marriage spread and other
members of the Mormon community at Nauvoo
were appalled at the idea. Within the Moon family,
the marriage caused significant tension,
particularly between Margaret and RuthÕs mother
Lydia and her son-in-law.
¥ William Clayton went on to marry a further eight
women and having forty-two children in total.
Sisters
William Clayton
(1814Ð1879)
Margaret Moon
(1820Ð1870)
Ruth Moon
(1817Ð1894)
Married in
1836 in
Penwortham.
Married in
1843 in
Nauvoo.
Aaron Farr
(1818Ð1903)
Engagement
ended in
1843.

24. T H E M U R D E R O F J O S E P H S M I T H
¥ Many members of the Moon family
became part of Prophet Joseph
SmithÕs inner circle between 1841
and 1844, including presiding over
the plural marriage of Margaret
Moon to William Clayton.
¥ However, the Mormons faced
religious persecution throughout
their time in the Midwest, mainly in
the town of Nauvoo, Illinois.
¥ Smith, alongside his brother Hyrum,
were murdered by an anti-Mormon
mob on 27 June 1844 while Smith
was awaiting trial in Carthage jail on
charges of treason for declaring
martial law.
Exterior of Carthage Jail by C. C. A. Christensen.
Portrait of Joseph Smith
by unknown painter circa
1842 and owned by his
son Joseph Smith III.

25. Frozen Crossing by
Glen Hopkinson.
L E AV I N G N A U V O O
¥ With their prophet murdered and facing
further violent persecution, Brigham Young
decided to evacuate Nauvoo.
¥ A fight for succession ignited among several
key Mormon figures.
¥ Most Mormons followed Young beyond the
borders of the United States in search of
uninhabited land to settle. Others remained in
the Midwest and formed the Reorganized
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints led
by Joseph Smith III (today called Community of
Christ).
¥ The surviving members of the Moon family left
Nauvoo in 1850, almost a decade to the day
that they had first left England.
Brigham Young
(1801Ð1877)

26. M O R M O N M O O N P I O N E E R S
¥ The Moons travelled during
the summer months of 1850
yet many did not survive,
including Elder John Moon,
leader of the original
company across the Atlantic,
who died of cholera on 12
July.
¥ It was during this period that
Margaret MoonÕs husband
William Clayton (1819Ð1879)
wrote the famous hymn
Come, Come, Ye Saints.
Martin Handcart CompanyÑBitter Creek,
Wyoming, 1856 by Clark Kelley Price.

27. R E A C H I N G S A LT L A K E C I T Y
¥ It took the Moon family about
four months to cross the Rocky
Mountains but on 5 October,
Henry Moon recorded in his
diary that he and his family
had finally Òreached the Valley
of the Great Salt Lake City.Ó
Handcart Pioneers Arrive in
Salt Lake by Clark Kelley Price.

28. L I F E I N S A LT L A K E C I T Y
¥ The Moons continued their
entrepreneurial efforts in Salt
Lake City, setting up
businesses, helping to build
schools and running farms to
feed the growing population.
¥ They could live in peace at
last untilÉ
¥ The 1882 Edmunds Act was
passed in U.S. Congress to
outlaw polygamy.
Henry Moon, one of the
original Moons who
travelled aboard the
Britannia in 1840, became
a Latter-day Saint Bishop.
Moon Park at Farmington, Utah, is
named after the Mormon Moon
family.
The grave of Henry Moon at
Farmington City Cemetery.

29. M O R M O N S I N M E X I C O
¥ Some of the Moons faced charges over
their practice of polygamy.
¥ For example, John Thomas Moon, a
second generation Mormon, fled to Mexico
where a settlement had been established
by the Church called Colonia D’az until
Mexican revolutionaries destroyed it in
1912.
¥ The Mormon Moons at Colonia D’az
returned to Utah following the Mexican
Revolution and this is where hundreds of
descendants of the Moon family still live
today.
¥ I have managed to contact some, they have
given me information to support my
research and one day I hope to travel to
Salt Lake City myself to meet my relatives.
John Thomas Moon
(1844Ð1910)
Members of the Mormon
settlement at Colonia D’az.
Catherine Duncan
Moon (1846Ð1917)
Harriet Neibaur
Moon (1871Ð1928)

30. M O O N C O R R E S P O N D E N C E
Letter from Henry Moon to his sister Hannah
Moon back in England, 15 August 1858.
Letter from Hannah Moon to her brother
Henry Moon, 15 April 1869.
Letter from Edmund and Hannah Moon to
brother Henry Moon, 11 February 1879.

31. R E S O U R C E S F E AT U R I N G M O R M O N M O O N S
The Pick and Flower of England:
The Illustrated Story of the
Mormons in Victorian England &
The Story of the Preston Temple by
David M W Pickup, 1991.
Life of Heber C. Kimball by
Orson F. Whitney, 1888.
The Family of Henry Moon
Mormon Pioneer 1819 Ð 1894 by
Richard Nephi Moon, Maureen
Moon LaPray and Louise Moon
Thiebaud, 2006.
No Toil Nor Labor Fear: The
Story of William Clayton by
James B. Allen, 2002.
First Mission to Great Britain
by Stanley B. Kimball, The
Improvement Era Magazine,
October 1961, p720-723.
The First Immigrants to Nauvoo
by Stanley B. Kimball, The
Improvement Era Magazine,
March 1963, p178-181.
Under Sail to Zion by
Conway B. Sonne, Ensign
Magazine, July 1991, p6-14.

32. O N G O I N G & F U T U R E R E S E A R C H
Mormon Moons
¥ How the Moons were early
practitioners of polygamy in the
Mormon community.
¥ The Moon polygamists who fled
to Mexico when the American
government outlawed
polygamy.
¥ A more detailed analysis of
Hugh MoonÕs account in his
diary of the Moon migration.
¥ Analysis of the letters of
correspondence between Henry
Moon and his sister Hannah
back in England.
Quaker Moons
¥ Analysis of The Revelation of
Jesus Christ unto John Moone
(1658) (to be published in the
journal Quaker History in 2024).
¥ Analysis of Paul MoonÕs
writings, especially his work
GodÕs Controversy (1693).
¥ Further analysis of John MoonÕs
travels with George Fox to
spread Quakerism in England
and the Caribbean.
¥ Analysis of any other written
works of Quaker Moons.

33. A N T I Q U E P H O T O G R A P H S
Dating Antique Photographs
Project
¥ Funding granted by UCLanÕs
Institute of Creativity, Communities
and Culture.
¥ Planning a series of workshops at
UCLan in May, June and July for
dating antique photographs.
¥ I am creating The Handbook of
Antique Photographs.
¥ Looking for those with a special
interest in Victorian fashion and
culture to help provide assistance or
to perform a guest lecture.

34. L I S T E N I N G
T H A N K Y O U F O R
Are There Any Questions?
Shall We Not Go On in So Great
a Cause? by Clark Kelley Price.
brtaylorian@uclan.ac.uk