Emma Lane (Dunham)

Great thanks to Lucia Finley for providing all this great information below regarding grandma Emma's family - it is truly invaluable and I appreciate it greatly, and I bet others will value it equally!

1) Maria Burr was the daughter of Samuel & Concurrance Johnson Burr, and was born 5 Jan 1806 in Haddam, Middlesex, CT. Her first husband was John W. Clark (with whom she had 5 children). Her second husband was William West Lane, son of James & Mary Ann "Polly" Phipps Lane. Mariah & William (who had 10 children by his first wife) had five daughters together.

You mention in your bio of Emma, that she was taken to Denver to live with her sister, Mrs. O'Banion. Actually, this was her half-sister, Flora Clark O'Banion (daughter of Mariah Burr & John W. Clark). Her four full sisters were Lavina Lane (who died at age 10 in Springville, UT), Sarah J. Lane (who married George Greenwalt), and twins Cordelia & Ciscelia (my gg-grandmother).

2) So far, [the the "missing" older children of William West & Mary Willis] have really been playing "hide n seek" with me. I have found the burial sites of all four of Emma's full sisters (Laviina, and twins Cordelia & Ciscelia, are all buried in Springville, Utah as is Maria's son Davis Clark-All except Ciscelia are buried at Springville City Cemetery, Ciscelia is at Evergreen Cemetery also in Springville/ Sarah is buried at Ivy Green Cemetery, in Bremerton, WA/ Maria's son Enoch Alpheus is buried in Draper Corporation Cemetery, Draper, Utah), I also just found "proof" of Alpheus Clark (one of Maria & John W. Clark's two children that died in Quincy, IL in 1839, as John and these 2 children died within 18 days of each other, I think it's safe to assume that all 3 are located there), and I have a couple of William West & Mary Willis Lane's children's burial sites. These families had so many unbelievable tragedies, and their graves are scattered from one side of the country to the other.

3) I'm looking at your Burr headstones on FlickR, and am not sure which cemetery it would be. Old Ponset is at Haddam (that's where Mariah Burr Lane's parents are buried). Beaver Meadow cemetery is also in Haddam and has some Burr's, as does Little City Cemetery. Just quickly looking through these, on the ones I can make out names, nothing looks familiar. But I'll go through them more closely tomorrow and see if I can pinpoint something to a particular cemetery.

4) I'll look through what I've got on Emma and see if there is anything else I can send you. I did make one great find the other day, I found the 1860 census (Denver, Arapahoe, Kansas Territory) for James Hall O'Banion, Flora Clark O'Banion and EMMA LANE....I'm attaching it. It was dated Aug 20 1860, so now I've narrowed down Flora's death to between that date and June on 1861 (that is the date James was excommunicated from the LDS Church in Springville, UT).

5) Neither of Maria Burr Clark Lane's husbands practiced polygamy, but several of her children did. Sons Davis & Enoch both did, and my gg-grandmother Ciscelia was the 2nd wife of polygamist James DeGroot Oakley. She got fed up with the situation, when he went on his "honeymoon" with his 3rd wife, while she was giving birth. She divorced him and married Hyrum Clark. From what I can tell, most of William West Lane's children from his first marriage, either left the church or certainly were what we call "jack Mormons"...meaning they didn't exactly "adhere" to Mormon doctrines. These children mostly ended up in the Carson Valley, NV/ El Dorado, CA area. Maria Burr's two uncles (although they were actually younger then she was), were major polygamists...Aaron & Lorenzo Johnson. Disturbingly, Aaron Johnson married four of his own nieces!