From 1883 to 1898, he served as president of the St. Joseph Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Thatcher, Arizona.

The following year he was married to Mary Matthews, and in 1843 the two set sail for America with 212 Saints on the ship Swanton led by Elder Lorenzo Snow.

At the English hamlet of Big Mound, eight miles from Nauvoo, Christopher Layton was putting in seed corn when he heard the news of the death of Joseph, and he dropped his load and walked slowly out of the field.

Arriving at the Missouri River, he enlisted in the Mormon Battalion with Company C, and made the long journey on foot to California.

After a delay of more than a year in St. Louis, he led a large company of Saints across the plains and mountains to the Salt Lake Valley.

For the next 30 years Christopher Layton pioneered in Carson Valley, Nevada, where he built for himself a large herd of cattle.

In Kaysville he became a man of wealth and affluence and considered himself settled for life when the call came from the First Presidency to take charge of the settlements in southern Arizona.

Christopher Layton had been set apart to preside over a new stake to be named St. Joseph in honor of the martyred Prophet.

Leaving six wives behind in Utah, Layton moved south with his youngest wife, Elizabeth, and with $21,000 set to work building an empire in southeastern Arizona.

He bought two thousand acres, called the place Thatcher, divided it into lots, and sold them to Mormon settlers.