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Charles William & Eleanor Turner Willden

Charles William Willden was born in Anston, England, in Yorkshire county, on the 27th of July, 1806. His eternal mate Eleanor Turner was also born in Yorkshire county, in the village of Laughton, on the 9th of April, 1810. They met and were married in Laughton on January 21, 1833, seven months before the birth of their eldest son, Ellot. In 1839, a few months after the birth of their fourth child, John, Charles was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Eleanor joined four years later and then in 1849 the family, now with three more children, set out to travel to Utah.

Because their second child and first daughter, Eleanor, had passed away in 1837 at the age of two, there were a total of six children ranging in ages from 17 to less than a year when they embarked on their journey. The youngest, Maria, did not survive the trip, passing on at the age of 20 months as the family wintered at Council Bend, Arkansas. Ellot, Charles Turner, John, Feargus O'Connor and Ann Jane all made the trip, and the family was joined en route by Mary Ellen Elizabeth, born in Council Bend.

When the family arrived in the Salt Lake valley, Brigham Young learned that Charles had worked in the steel industry in Sheffield and directed him to take his family to Cedar City, to assist with the new iron works being established there. As many travelers from Salt Lake City to Cedar City did, the family spend the night in the Cove Creek area, which impressed Charles as a nice place to live. A few years later the family returned to Cove Creek and built Fort Willden, the precursor to Cove Fort, which still exists today.

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