Between 1847 and 1868, Mormon emigrants traveling in
more than 300 companies departed from various places and headed for the
Salt Lake Valley. More than 60,000 LDS Church members travelled in these
companies -- some traveling by foot, some in wagons, and some pulling
handcarts.
During the 19th century, over 94,000 converts of the
Latter Day Saints (LDS) church crossed the oceans to gather to Zion(1).
In 1840, the first company of immigrant Saints began their journey to
Zion. They were followed by a continual flow of immigration for the next
50 years.
The destination of most members who immigrated from
1840 to 1846 was Nauvoo, Illinois. After the Saints were driven west in
1847, the gathering place became the Salt Lake Valley and numerous
communities in the Great Basin of the west. Immigrant Accounts of those
who travelled not only described their experiences crossing the oceans,
but also documents their travels to frontier outfitting posts and their
arrival into the Salt Lake Valley. The portion dealing with the Saints
crossing the plains (1847–1868) has generally been omitted due to the
vast amount of bibliographic material.
With the completion of
the transcontinental railroad in 1869, most of the immigrants between
1869 and 1890 went by rail rather than by wagon or handcart.
Consequently, the immigration story of many Saints from international
ports of departure to entry by train into the Salt Lake Valley during
this time has been captured in vivid detail through their journals and
biographical accounts.
Not all people who took part in these
voyages were members of the LDS church. Some non-members accompanied the
Saints for a variety of reasons
Notes by Richard Douglas,
1909-1910.
Article No. 1.... He assisted in ferrying the
saints across the river at the time of the expulsion from Nauvoo. Father
[Richard Douglas] was in Sugar Creek during the time the church was
gathering for the trip to the west. There was a company there called the
pioneers, who labored under the direction of Apostle Cha[rle]s C. Rich.
They were called the Pioneer Company. There were about twenty seven
persons in the company. This company were the men, that built the
bridges and very materially assisted the saints after they started west.
Father remained in this country about three months and helped make the
roads, build the bridges and also to erect the first house that was
built at Garden Grove after the Saints left Nauvoo. He assisted also in
fencing and planting grain for those that followed of the saints. After
laboring for three months with the Pioneer Co. Father received an
honorable discharge from Apostle C. C. Rich and returned to Nauvoo.
. . . During the time that his parents were in St. Louis, they
accumulated sufficient means to emigrate to Utah and finally started to
Utah in connection with his mother, his mother's husband, John Parker
and their family, John Pincock and his family and Edmund Robins and his
family. There were eleven wagons in all. Their company left St. Louis in
the Spring of 1852 and drove overland to Salt Lake valley with ox teams.
They landed in Salt Lake valley on the 28th of August, 1852. There were
no accidents on the way.
Article No. 3. The following is a brief
history of my father's family coming to Utah as given to me by my father
himself.
--We left St. Louis for Utah April 14th, 1852. The
company consisted principally of our own family. My step-father John
Parker was the captain of the company, which consisted of eleven ox
teams and wagons all belonging to the family excepting one. Father
Parker had two brothers-in-law named Edward and William Carbridge [Corbridge].
Father Parker emigrated [with] William Carbridge from England to Utah.
We travelled all the way with ox teams from St. Louis to Salt Lake
City. In the early portion of our trip, we passed through Jackson Co.,
Mo. from where the Saints had been driven some years before. We crossed
the caw river near where Kansas City now stands on a Ferry boat. From
there we made our way to Fort Leavenworth where we received our goods,
furniture etc. which had been shipped from St. Louis to Fort Leavenworth
on steam-boat. We loaded up and started for Salt Lake on the south side
of the Platt[e] River arriving in Salt Lake City, Utah on Saturday,
August 28, 1852. . . .
The entire company who started from St.
Loious [Louis] consisted of John Parker, Edward Carbridge, William
Carbridge, Richard Douglas, Edmund Robins, John Pincock, George Douglas,
William Parker, Isabel Douglas Pincock, Ann Douglas Robins, Mary
Douglas, Vilate Douglas, Elizabeth Parker, Ann Parker, William Parker
and Elizabeth Douglas, my wife. Also our two children Ellen and
Elizabeth, the children having been born in St. Louis before we started
to emigrate.
Ralph Douglas, my older brother was called as one of
the Mormon Battalion and made the trip through old Mexico going around
through lower California and returned to Salt Lake, then continued his
journey on east and brought his family back to Utah landing in Utah in
1850 as Captain of the company. James Douglas, my father's brother was
also one of the Mormon Battalion making the same journey that my brother
Ralph Douglas made except that he came to Utah the second time and then
went west and died in California.
Notes:
1. Zion is the central physical location to which Latter Day
Saints have gathered; the term has been applied to Kirtland, Ohio;
Jackson County, Missouri; Nauvoo, Illinois; and the Salt Lake Valley;
Zion is a metaphor for a unified society of Latter Day Saints,
metaphorically gathered as members of the Church of Christ; in this
sense any Stake of the church may be referred to as a "stake of Zion."
See also:List of migrants
Richard Douglass |
