The Family Story

My grandfather, Allen F. Hampton, treasured his H.E. Sawyer watercolors. They were passed down from his father, Edward Gilbert Hampton who immigrated from the Isle of Man in to Ogden, Utah in the late 1880's as a Mormon convert.

Edward Gilbert Hampton was born in 1865/6 in Douglas, Isle of Man. After immigrating to Ogden in 1888/1889, he sung as a bass in the early Mormon Tabernacle Choir and served on a work crew to build the Salt Lake Temple. The business he founded, Hampton's Dry Cleaners, is still in existence today. Family stories recount Edward Gilbert Hampton as a friend of H.E. Sawyer; two Manx young men who traveled together to Zion. However, I have not found Edward Gilbert or H.E. Sawyer in ship manifests from Ellis Island. Nonetheless, H.E. Sawyer provided watercolors of the cherished homeland that Edward Gilbert Hampton would never see again.

Our family owns four H.E. Sawyer paintings:

1) Sailboats at the Tower of Refuge near Port Douglas
2) Sailboats at Liberty Island- Statue of Liberty
3) Manx, Scottish or Western U.S. Woodland Deer
4) Herding Sheep in the Scottish Highlands

 
H.E. Sawyer's family lived in Ogden, Utah as did my extended family and had been in contact from time to time. We consider the paintings cherished family heirlooms and commissioned a professional photographer create reproductions of each piece. In order to create a larger compilation of the works of H.E. Sawyer for publication, a museum, and/or family history, we would be willing to share digital copies. We would also like the opportunity to copy any of your H.E. Sawyer works, in an attempt to chronicle Manx, American, and Mormon history.