The Following Companies - Last Days On The Missouri

When the pioneers set out from the Missouri, instructions were
left for the organization of similar companies who were to follow
their trail, without waiting to learn their ultimate destination
or how they fared on the way. These companies were in charge of
prominent men like Parley P. Pratt, John Taylor, Bishop Hunter,
Daniel Spencer, who succeeded Smith as mayor of Nauvoo, and J. M.
Grant, the first mayor of Salt Lake City after its incorporation.

P. P. Pratt set out early in June, as soon as he could get his
wagons and equipment in order, for Elk Horn River, where a sort
of rendezvous was established, and a rough ferry boat put in
operation. Hence started about the Fourth of July the big company
which has been called "the first emigration." It consisted,
according to the most trustworthy statistics, of 1553 persons,
equipped with 566 wagons, 2213 oxen, 124 horses, 887 cows, 358
sheep, 35 hogs, and 716 chickens. Pratt had brought back from
England 469 sovereigns, collected as tithing, which were used in
equipping the first parties for Utah. This company had at its
head, as president, Brigham Young's brother John, with P. P.
Pratt as chief adviser.

Nothing more serious interrupted the movement of these hundreds
of emigrants than dissatisfaction with Pratt, upsets, broken
wagons, and the occasional straying of cattle, and all arrived in
the valley in the latter part of September, Pratt's division on
the 25th.

The company which started on the return trip with Young on August
26 embraced those Apostles who had gone West with him, some
others of the pioneers, and most of the members of the Battalion
who had joined them, and whose families were still on the banks
of the Missouri. The eastward trip was made interesting by the
meetings with the successive companies who were on their way to
the Salt Lake Valley. Early in September some Indians stole 48 of
their hoses, and ten weeks later 200 Sioux charged their camp,
but there was no loss of life.

On the 19th of October the party were met by a mounted company
who had left Winter Quarters to offer any aid that might be
needed, and were escorted to that camp. They arrived there on
October 31, where they were welcomed by their families, and
feasted as well as the supplies would permit.

The winter of 1847-1848 was employed by Young and his associates
in completing the church organization, mapping out a scheme of
European immigration, and preparing for the removal of the
remaining Mormons to Salt Lake Valley.

That winter was much milder than its predecessor, and the health
of the camps was improved, due, in part, to the better physical
condition of their occupants. On the west side of the river,
however, troubles had arisen with the Omahas, who complained to
the government that the Mormons were killing off the game and
depleting their lands of timber. The new-comers were accordingly
directed to recross the river, and it was in this way that the
camp near Council Bluffs in 1848 secured its principal
population. In Mormon letters of that date the name Winter
Quarters is sometimes applied to the settlement east of the river
generally known as Kanesville.

The programme then arranged provided for the removal in the
spring of 1848 to Salt Lake Valley of practically all Mormons who
remained on the Missouri, leaving only enough to look after the
crops there and to maintain a forwarding point for emigrants from
Europe and the Eastern states. The legislature of Iowa by request
organized a county embracing the camps on the east side of the
river. There seems to have been an idea in the minds of some of
the Mormons that they might effect a permanent settlement in
western Iowa. Orson Pratt, in a general epistle to the Saints in
Europe, encouraging emigration, dated August 15, 1848, said, "A
great, extensive, and rich tract of country has also been, by the
providence of God, put in the possession of the Saints in the
western borders of Iowa," which the Saints would have the first
chance to purchase, at five shillings per acre. A letter from G.
A. Smith and E. T. Benson to O. Pratt, dated December 20 in that
year, told of the formation of a company of 860 members to
enclose an additional tract of 11,000 acres, in shares of from 5
to 80 acres, and of the laying out of two new cities, ten miles
north and south. Orson Hyde set up a printing-press there, and
for some time published the Frontier Guardian. But wiser counsel
prevailed, and by 1853 most of the emigrants from Nauvoo had
passed on to Utah,* and Linforth found Kanesville in 1853 "very
dirty and unhealthy," and full of gamblers, lawyers, and dealers
in "bargains," the latter made up principally of the outfits of
discouraged immigrants who had given up the trip at that point.

* On September 21, 1851, the First Presidency sent a letter to
the Saints who were still in Iowa, directing them all to come to
Salt Lake Valley, and saying: "What are you waiting for? Have you
any good excuse for not coming? No. You have all of you unitedly
a far better chance than we had when we started as pioneers to
find this place."--Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, p. 29.


Young himself took charge of the largest body that was to cross
the plains in 1848. The preparations were well advanced by the
first of May, and on the 24th he set out for Elk Horn (commonly
called "The Horn") where the organization of the column was to be
made. The travellers were divided into two large companies, the
first four "hundreds" comprising 1229 persons and 397 wagons; the
second section, led by H. C. Kimball, 662 persons and 226 wagons;
and the third, under Elders W. Richards and A. Lyman, about 300
wagons. A census of the first two companies, made by the clerk of
the camp, showed that their equipment embraced the following
items: horses, 131; mules, 44; oxen, 2012; cows and other cattle,
1317; sheep, 654; pigs, 237; chickens, 904; cats, 54; dogs, 134;
goats, 3; geese, 10; ducks, 5; hives of bees, 5; doves, 11; and
one squirrel.*

* Millennial Star, Vol. X, p. 319.


The expense of fitting out these companies was necessarily large,
and the heads of the church left at Kanesville a debt amounting
to $3600, "without any means being provided for its payment."*

* Ibid, Vol. XI, p. 14.


President Young's company began its actual westward march on June
5, and the last detachment got away about the 25th. They reached
the site of Salt Lake City in September. The incidents of the
trip were not more interesting than those of the previous year,
and only four deaths occurred on the way.


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Previous: From The Rockies To Salt Lake Valley

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