Sent by his wealthy merchant father, Curtis Edwin Bolton sailed to Europe in 1832 to study French and German, leaving his fiancée behind in New York. At twenty-years-old Curtis Edwin Bolton was 5’9” with blue eyes and black hair. He returned stateside in the fall of 1834. As a new convert, he pilgrimaged with the diaspora of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to the Great Salt Lake Valley in 1848. His first winter, he taught French in the evenings in their bedbug-infested fort. In 1849, Curtis accepted a mission call to serve in France, embarking with a small group of missionaries.
\nWhile Curtis labored to translate the Book of Mormon into French in his Paris apartment in 1851, a tangible stillness fell upon the noisy bustling city as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte’s troops flooded through the streets nearby. On signal, the soldiers leveled their weapons at the innocent bystanders watching out their windows. With an infernal roar of artillery, they bombarded thousands of men, women, and children. After hiding in his apartment for two days, Curtis stepped out, stunned by the destruction of the coup d’état. He resided in France until 1853.
\nLife pulled him to the frontier desert areas of southern Utah Territory. He led a Fourth of July celebration in Santaquin, rode the rapids in the Muddy Mission, and taught school in Long Valley and Monroe. Popular in local elections, he served as Piute County Clerk and Justice of the Peace, in addition to merchant, miner, and sawmill owner.
\nProud of his robust nature, he boasted he could walk fifty miles in one day. His strength and endurance fueled many of his accomplishments. In his sixties, he homesteaded in Piute County near the Sevier River, where he built his final home, a two-room log house with a shingle roof and board floor. He also dug miles of irrigation ditches and cultivated twenty acres (SLC Land Office, Curtis Bolton homestead file). He founded a town called Boltonheim, meaning “Bolton home” in German, located five miles south of Marysvale, where he served as the postmaster from 1878 until 1880. In those days, a letter only cost three cents for postage.
\nA stroke in 1883 prompted Curtis to transfer ownership of his homestead to Sarah Howes, in exchange for her pledge of lifelong care. After battling stiffness in his right hand for two years, he stepped down from his role as county clerk at the age of seventy-three. Curtis’s life reflects the adventurous drive that brought many pioneering individuals westward.
","sponsor":null,"accessinfo":"","lede":"The winds of time swept the frontier town of Boltonheim, Utah Territory, into historical obscurity. Its founder, Curtis Edwin Bolton, served as postmaster from 1878-1880. ","website":"","related_resources":["Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. Curtis E. Bolton letterpress copybook, 1834-1853 (Curtis Edwin Bolton). Available at https://catalog.churchofjesuschrist.org/assets/bf1c5143-f43f-49ae-8ffd-90dc0def6d52/0/0.","Utah, Salt Lake City Land Office, affidavit by Curtis E. Bolton, 15 September 1881; Curtis E. Bolton (Piute County) homestead file, certificate no.1672; Land Entry Papers, 1800-1908, Record Group 49; Records of the Bureau of Land Management; National Archives, Washington, DC; \"U.S., Homestead Records, 1863-1908,\" Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/193278:60593 : accessed September 12, 2024).","Carroll, Elsie Chamberlain. History of Kane County. Salt Lake City, Utah: The Utah Printing Company, 1960.","Evans, Cleo H. Curtis Edwin Bolton, Pioneer Missionary: History, Descendants and Ancestors. Fairfax, VA: Evans, 1968.
"],"factoids":["Curtis Edwin Bolton translated the Book of Mormon into French.","The old fort in Salt Lake City had bedbugs.","In the winter of 1848, some adults attended French class in the old fort during the evenings.","In 1851, Curtis Edwin Bolton witnessed the coup d’état in Paris","Boltonheim had a post office from 1878-1880","Postage stamps cost three cents in 1880"],"files":{"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/3e28561583744c431a467eba45d02141.jpg":{"id":3854,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Bureau of Land Management, “Survey Search” from General Land Office Records","description":"Bureau of Land Management, “Survey Search,” images, General Land Office Records (https://glorecords.blm.gov/details/survey/default.aspx : accessed 19 June 2022), Original Survey DM 368466 (1877), Township 28S, Range 3W, Piute County, Utah; annotated by Connie L. Vance.","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/3e28561583744c431a467eba45d02141.jpg"},"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/032f8241209c3ecfd8a31c94cca59f2f.jpg":{"id":3855,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Preliminary post route map of the territories of Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and state of Colorado, with parts of adjacent states and territories.","description":"Yale University. W.L. Nicholson, Preliminary post route map of the territories of Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and state of Colorado, with parts of adjacent states and territories / designed and constructed under the orders of D.M. Key by W.L. Nicholson of P.O. Dept. Available at https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/15813004.","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/032f8241209c3ecfd8a31c94cca59f2f.jpg"},"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/c6a82c320dba464a5cd1bf2b79ad498b.jpg":{"id":3856,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Boltonheim Aerial Map","description":"Matthew Wilbur, Boltonheim Aerial, Piute County, Utah, created November 19, 2024 |Photo courtesy of Piute County and Connie L. Vance.
","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/c6a82c320dba464a5cd1bf2b79ad498b.jpg"},"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/925414c78c83a510038ac5c396feef81.jpg":{"id":3857,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"From Poor's Manual of Railroads","description":"Poor, H.V. & H.W. Poor's Manual of Railroads, vol. 16. New York: H.V. & H.W. Poor, 1883. ","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/925414c78c83a510038ac5c396feef81.jpg"},"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/f64c61ff2aa7cbb7dce4dd32553d82a0.jpg":{"id":3884,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Territory of Utah","description":"United States, Territory of Utah, 1879; digital image, National Archives Catalog (https://catalog.archives.gov/id/112061650 : accessed 17 October 2024); citing National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), RG 77, Civil Works Map File 1818–1947, RG 77, Records of the Office of the Chief of Engineers 1789–1999, NAID 112061650.","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/f64c61ff2aa7cbb7dce4dd32553d82a0.jpg"},"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/d685efafaec2625a859853be23f0bb46.jpg":{"id":3885,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Post Route Map of the Territory of Utah with Parts of Adjacent States and Territories Showing Post Offices","description":"United States, Office of the Chief of Engineers, \"Post Route Map of the Territory of Utah with Parts of Adjacent States and Territories Showing Post Offices\" (1883); National Archives Catalog (https://catalog.archives.gov/id/122668432: accessed 25 October 2024); citing National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), Civil Works Map File, RG 77, NAID 122668432.","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/d685efafaec2625a859853be23f0bb46.jpg"}}}