Brief Life History of William Denton
When William Denton Alexander was born on 4 December 1851, in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah, United States, his father, Horace Martin Alexander, was 39 and his mother, Catherine Houston, was 20. He married Helena Knowlton Coray on 10 October 1878, in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah, United States. They were the parents of at least 4 sons and 3 daughters. He lived in Parowan, Iron, Utah, United States in 1860 and Utah, Utah, United States in 1910. He registered for military service in 1866. He died on 1 October 1931, in Provo, Utah, Utah, United States, at the age of 79, and was buried in Provo City Cemetery, Provo, Utah, Utah, United States.
Photos and Memories (14)
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Family Time Line
Sources (51)
- W D Alexander, "United States Census, 1910"
- W D Alexander, "Utah, County Marriages, 1887-1940"
- William Alexander, "Utah, Salt Lake County Death Records, 1908-1949"
Spouse and Children
Children (7)
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World Events (8)
1853
The Provo City Cemetery was dedicated in 1853.
1863
Abraham Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation, declaring slaves in Confederate states to be free.
1872 · The First National Park
Yellowstone National Park was given the title of the first national park by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant. It is also believed to be the first national park in the world.
Name Meaning
Scottish, English, German, and Dutch: from the personal name Alexander, classical Greek Alexandros, which probably originally meant ‘repulser of men (i.e. of the enemy)’, from alexein ‘to repel’ + andros, genitive of anēr ‘man’. Its popularity in the Middle Ages was due mainly to the Macedonian conqueror, Alexander the Great (356–323 BC ) - or rather to the hero of the mythical versions of his exploits that gained currency in the so-called Alexander Romances. The name was also borne by various early Christian saints, including a patriarch of Alexandria (c. 250–326 AD ), whose main achievement was condemning the Arian heresy. The Gaelic form of the personal name is Alasdair, which has given rise to a number of Scottish and Irish patronymics, for example McAllister . Alexander is a common personal name in Scotland, often representing an Anglicized form of the Gaelic name. In North America, the English form of the surname has absorbed cognates from other languages, e.g. Spanish Alejandro , Italian Alessandro , Arabic or Assyrian/Chaldean Iskandar and Iskander , and their derivatives, e.g. Greek patronymic Alexandropoulos.
Jewish: from the adopted personal name Alexander (see 1 above) or shortened from the eastern Ashkenazic (originally Slavic) patronymics Aleksandrovich or Alexandrowicz.
History: A number of Scotch-Irish families of this name landed at New York in the early 18th century. By 1746, six of them were established in NC. Others came in through Philadelphia, for example Archibald Alexander, who came from Londonderry in northern Ireland in 1736 and established himself in VA. — The Revolutionary general William Alexander (1726–83) was always known as ‘Lord Sterling’ to his compatriots, although his claim to the title was denied by the College of Arms in London. His father, James Alexander, was a Jacobite who had fled to New York after the failure of the Jacobite rising in 1715. The claim to the title arose in connection with their ancestor Sir William Alexander, a courtier and poet at the court of King James VI of Scotland (James I of England), who created him Earl of Stirling in 1633.
Dictionary of American Family Names © Patrick Hanks 2003, 2006.
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