Luke Johnson nodded and climbed up onto the wagon seat. “Just take it right across there,” Brigham said. At this point, the river was split into two streams by a long sandbar about midstream. For at least a hundred yards or more, the water was no more than a foot or so deep. But around the sandbar there were two main channels. Here the current was swifter and the water looked like it might be as much as four or five feet deep.
Johnson snapped the reins and his team started forward. The Revenue Cutter still had its full load of goods packed in it. As they hit the water, Johnson whistled sharply at his team, urging them forward more quickly. “Get up there, team!” he shouted. They leaped forward into a run, kicking up great sprays of water.
It was all right until he reached the main channel. Then suddenly the water was up to the hubs of the wheels. The wagon started to slow. “He’s sinking,” Matthew cried.
That he was. The wagon had slowed considerably, though the horses were fighting hard to keep it moving. The wheels were bringing up black silt now, which left a dark stain in the clear water. Johnson was shouting at his team, urging them on. They were up to their bellies now and fighting for footing. He was almost to a standstill when they reached the sandbar and the footing beneath them became firmer. They shot forward, the wagon jerking around sharply behind them.
“Don’t stop! Don’t stop!” Brigham was shouting.
The wagon-boat careened as it passed over the sandbar, the wheels throwing sand in a fine spray, then hit the water again. The stream on the other side of the sandbar was narrower and deeper, and here the current was at its swiftest. In just a few feet, the horses were up to their chests and the water was over the front wheels and pushing at the bottom of the Revenue Cutter. The back end of the wagon started to swing around. The horses slowed, then stopped, wheezing and jerking their heads. In one quick motion Luke wrapped the reins around the brake lever, then jumped into the water. It nearly swept him away, and he had to grab at the harnessing to catch himself. He pushed forward to reach the heads of his horses, then took them by the bridle. “Come on, boys!” he urged. “Don’t stop on me now. Giddyap. Come on. Go! Go!”
His effort paid off. Fighting and lunging in great leaps, the horses began to move again. They crossed ten more feet and then the bottom began to rise again. It was only to the animal’s knees, and that gave them enough strength to lunge for the bank. In a moment, wagon-boat and team were across. Luke Johnson let go of his team and doubled over, hands on his knees, gasping for air. Then he finally straightened. He was soaked to his chest. “You can do it,” he shouted, “but whatever you do, don’t stop.”
Brigham nodded and turned. “All right, who’s next?”
Orson Pratt had decided that taking a loaded wagon across the soft bottom was the problem. Without waiting for instructions, he unloaded half his wagon. It didn’t matter. He didn’t even make the sandbar. Those watching plunged into the river to help him. A dozen men threw their weight against the box, lifting and pushing at the same time. They unloaded the remainder of the wagon at the sandbar, and the men carried the items across. But as Elder Pratt took his team into the second channel, they foundered in the deep water and one of the horses went down in the traces. It could have been dangerous. A horse struggling to free itself can deliver a deadly kick, but it was too tangled to kick out any way but forward. In a moment the men had the harnessing undone and both horses were free from the wagon. They finally had to tie a rope to the stalled wagon and pull it out by hand.
Norton Jacob was convinced that his oxen had greater strength than the horses and wanted to try crossing with his wagon fully loaded. It stopped twenty yards short of the bar. Luke Johnson and others unloaded the Revenue Cutter and they began to ferry Norton’s goods across to the other side.
By the time they got their fifth or sixth wagon across, Brigham called for a halt. They were going to have to build a raft. At this rate they would lose two or three days making a linear distance of three hundred yards.
In the end, they did not build the rafts. The following morning, as they started work on cutting down the trees, the scouts went out to see if they might find a better place for the crossing. About a mile upstream they found a place where they felt they could take the wagons across if they lightened the loads some and double and triple teamed the wagons.
They worked in teams. One team would unload about half of each wagon and carry it down to the water where the Revenue Cutter waited. A second team rowed it across the river and unloaded it, then returned for the next load. A third team worked on taking the extra teams and hitching them to each wagon. It was hard labor for all of them, but it was working. With the extra teams, the wagons were making it across without the help of men in the water.
To their pleased astonishment, with the passing of each wagon, the sand in the river bottom began to pack together. By noon they were passing easily with the extra teams. By two they were no longer unloading the wagons. They still had to double team but they were taking them across fully loaded. By four o’clock they were done.
Nathan and Matthew’s was one of the last wagons to go, and so they had not been forced to unload their supplies. As they reached the other side and began unhitching the extra team of mules Brigham had lent them, Wilford Woodruff sidled up to them. “Well,” he said with a droll smile, “all Israel went over today. Not over the mighty Jordan, but across the Loup Fork of the Platte River. And we did so without harm to man or beast.”
“If you ask me,” Nathan said without expression, “I think I’d prefer the Jordan.”
Chapter Notes
Four principal sources have been used by the author for the information about the original Pioneer Company as they crossed the continent from Winter Quarters to the Salt Lake Valley. The four sources are described below:
1.
Day by Day with the Utah Pioneers—1847
was a series of articles published in the
Salt Lake Tribune
in 1897, the fiftieth anniversary of the journey of the Pioneer Company. It is a day-by-day account of the trek west written by Andrew Jenson, who was at that time the Church historian. It contains a detailed account of each day, along with biographies and pictures of those who came with the Pioneer Company.
2. Hal Knight and Stanley B. Kimball produced a book called
111 Days to Zion.
This too is a day-by-day account of the trek west. While this draws on the Jenson source for some of its information, it has additional material and some excellent maps showing the campsites for each day. A reprint edition of this book was published in 1997 by Big Moon Traders, Salt Lake City.
3. William Clayton’s journal is an invaluable source of information on the crossing, though it is written from the point of view of his own experience. George D. Smith has provided an edited version of Clayton’s journals in
An Intimate Chronicle: The Journals of William Clayton
(Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1995). The entries are by date and therefore easy to find. However, Smith has cut a great deal of material in order to have a one-volume edition. The pioneer-trek portion of William Clayton’s journal can be found in full on the
Infobase Library
available from Bookcraft on CD-ROM or at
4. Wilford Woodruff was a meticulous and careful journal keeper. His journals have been published in several volumes by Signature Books, with volume 3 covering 1847 and the trek west. Portions of Wilford Woodruff’s journal appear in Matthias F. Cowley,
Wilford Woodruff: History of His Life and Labors
(Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1964), and this book is also found on the
Infobase Library.
Hereafter, rather than tediously document all of the details used in the novel in each chapter, reference citations will be given only for significant items from other sources. Each of the four sources above uses a day-by-day format, so that the interested reader can easily check the details for any particular date.
The trip across the plains is generally said to have taken 111 days (from 5 April, when Heber C. Kimball first began to move, until 24 July, when Brigham Young’s carriage finally entered the Valley).
To the casual reader, it may seem as though the start of the Pioneer Company was somewhat disorganized. However, from the beginning the plan was that the various elements of the company would make their way separately to the Elkhorn River, about twenty miles west of Winter Quarters, and assemble there. Heber C. Kimball was the first, leaving on the fifth of April. As depicted here in the novel, four other members of the Twelve, including Brigham Young, left on the seventh, the day after general conference.
They didn’t move either very far or very fast at first. On the eighth of April, word reached Brigham Young that Parley P. Pratt had just arrived at Winter Quarters from his mission in England. Anxious to talk with his fellow Apostle, Brigham returned to Winter Quarters, then rejoined his company on the eleventh. They had barely finished ferrying their wagons across the Elkhorn River when another letter came to the camp. Now it was John Taylor who had returned from Great Britain. In addition to bringing a substantial sum of badly needed cash from the British Saints, Elder Taylor also carried about five hundred dollars’ worth of scientific and surveying instruments—two barometers, two sextants, two artificial horizons, a circle of reflection, and a telescope. Those would prove to be of critical value in laying out a trail for others to follow and for surveying new cities and towns in the Great Basin. So while some of the camp moved slowly westward and others stayed in place, Brigham returned again to Winter Quarters. With him went seven of the Apostles. After getting the funds and the instruments and holding a warm reunion with their brethren, the Twelve left Elders Parley P. Pratt and John Taylor in charge of organizing the companies that were to follow as soon as possible. On April fifteenth, the Apostles rejoined their company on the Platte River, about forty-six miles west of Winter Quarters, and prepared to formally depart the next day. (See Leonard J. Arrington,
Brigham Young: American Moses
[New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985], pp. 130–32.)
Originally there was to be 144 in the original Pioneer Company, a number symbolizing that this was the camp of Israel—there being twelve men chosen to represent each of the twelve tribes of Israel. Three dropped out because of sickness, and two—Thomas Bullock and William Clayton—were added at the last minute, leaving the final total at 148 people with the three women and two children.
The Luke Johnson mentioned here was one of the original Twelve Apostles chosen in 1835, but had left the Church during the Kirtland apostasy. He came to Nauvoo seeking fellowship and was rebaptized in 1846. Thereafter he remained faithful for the rest of his life. He was not restored to the apostleship.
Lorenzo Dow Young’s milk cow went the full distance to the Salt Lake Valley, providing the Pioneer Company with greatly appreciated milk and cheese.
Chapter 38
Alice Samuelson Steed rose to her full height, which was barely more than five foot two inches, and waved her hands. “All right, you two, that’s enough.”
Both Will and Peter looked up in amazement. They had been so engrossed in their argument, they had totally forgotten that they were not alone. To see Alice standing before them with her eyes locking theirs in challenge came as a bit of a shock.
“What?” Will said, not sure what it was that she had said.
“I said that’s enough.” She moved between them. “Sam Brannan is going to come back here and want an answer and you two will still be fighting over who gets to go with him.”
They looked at each other sheepishly, knowing she was right.
“All right,” she said, coming to a decision. “I’ll be the judge here. Peter, you go first. You give all the reasons why you think it should be you who goes east with him. Will won’t say a word until you’re done.” She glared at her husband. “Will you?”
He shook his head meekly.
“Then when you’re done, Peter, William here can have his turn. And you will listen until he is finished. Understood?”
“Yes, Alice,” Peter said with equal humility.
She moved back to her chair, trying not to smile. “Okay, Peter, you may begin.”
“All right,” he said, leaning forward. “First, we know for sure that there is no way that Sam Brannan is going to agree to let Alice and Jared go with you. Which means you have to leave a wife and child behind. I don’t. That’s the most important reason. Second, my wife and the child I have never seen are waiting for me somewhere at a place called Fort Pueblo on the east side of the Rockies. I promised that I would come for them as soon as possible.”
He was trying hard not to sound triumphant. He knew he had the strongest case, and he was pretty sure Alice would agree with him. “Third, if we were going by ship, I would have to defer to you, Will. But we’re not. We’re going overland. And which of the two of us has just come all the way across the continent by wagon? Tell me that, please.”
Will started to mutter something, but Alice held up her hand. “Not yet.” She turned to Peter. “Is that all?”
He looked sober. “We could say something about having the better-looking of the two of us go, but that would just be rubbing salt into the wound.”
“Ha!” Will cried.
“I’m afraid I would rule against you on that one,” Alice laughed merrily. “You’re very nice-looking, Peter, but my Will—oh, goodness, he is so handsome.”
“
Now
can I speak?” Will cried in exasperation.
“Yes, dear,” Alice answered sweetly.
He turned to Peter. “Granted, you’ve made some strong points, but let me note the following. I have driven many a wagon with my father in the freight business. Maybe I haven’t crossed the plains, but I’m not inexperienced.”
“Can you drive three yoke of oxen at the same time?” Peter shot back.
“Peter,” Alice warned.