Brigham Young's Homes

Chapter 4. Wives in Wagons: Winter Quarters and the Trek West

Chapter 4 Wives in Wagons Winter Quarters and the Trek West Judy Dykman and Colleen Whitley Although Brigham Young and other church leaders had planned an orderly evacuation for the spring of 1846, in February many of the traumatized Saints began streaming across the frozen Mississippi River. The original plan had been for some of the leaders to cross into Iowa Territory, where they would be immune to arrest on bogus warrants threatened by Illinois officials. Once there, they would establish orderly camps, ready to receive the bulk of the Saints later that spring. However, fears of further persecution from both government agencies and random mobs pushed many to rush toward the emotional security of their leaders, however insecure the physical conditions.1 They all knew that during the exodus to the West everyone would live in the same kind of houses: tents and wagons, and that privacy would be practically nonexistent. Nonetheless, plans had been made to make the trip as safe and pleasant as possible. The wagons were nine to ten feet long, their width varying from thirty-eight to forty-eight inches. The wheels themselves were four feet, eight inches in diameter. When handcarts were devised later, the wheels were set at the same distance apart as those on the wagons so that they would fit into the same ruts in the road.2 Today pioneer wagons or replicas of them can be seen in various places from Iron Mission State Park in Cedar City to the LDS Museum of History and Art in Salt Lake City. The Daughters of Utah Pioneers Museum also contains many wagons and carriages, including, according to their records, the one from which Brigham Young announced, “This is the right place.” Each wagon could carry up to two tons, and a family traveling to the Great Basin needed every ounce they could manage. Each family was advised to have a year to eighteen months’ supply of food along with animals, seeds, and materials to set up farming or shops once they reached the Great Basin. They were not merely adventurers but a community moving to a remote and desolate area to start again. Each family needed two or three yoke of oxen, aged four to ten years, to pull the wagon, and they also had one or two beef cattle, two or three milk cows, and a few sheep. Some had much more; Perrigrine Sessions, for example, took a whole herd of cattle when he came to Utah.3 Food supplies included a bushel of beans, one hundred pounds of sugar, one thousand pounds of flour in good sacks, one pound of tea and five of coffee, twenty-five pounds of grain, five pounds of dried peaches, ten pounds of apples, and a few pounds of dried beef or bacon. Spices and other condiments were also needed: two pounds of black pepper, some cayenne pepper, five pounds of soda, one pound of cinnamon, and half a pound of cloves. Other necessities included twenty pounds of soap and a gallon of alcohol , primarily for sterilizing wounds. In addition, each family had to carry a few pounds of nails and fifteen pounds of iron and steel for wagon repair and building once they reached the valley. Most also had up to five hundred pounds of clothing and bedding, cooking utensils—pots, pans, kettles, plates, cups, knives, forks, and spoons—as well as goods to trade with Indians along the trail.4 Two families might share a tent and some furniture, and each male over twelve was equipped with a good musket or rifle along with a pound of powder and four pounds of lead, and a weighted fish net plus four or five hooks and lines. Hunting and fishing were essential, not recreational. Shared equipment included farming and mechanical tools, saws and gristmill irons. Crossing rivers required two ferry boats for each company and two sets of pulley blocks. Ten extra teams were included for each one hundred people.5 Brigham Young’s Homes 70 For those who made such preparations, the trail was not particularly unkind. Irene Hascall Pomeroy described her wagon as she left Nauvoo: We have [our wagon] fixed expecting to stay until spring. There is two companies on ahead of us. One is stopped 150 miles from here [Au: or was this in the original (sic)?] the other has gone on. There is about 800 waggons in this...