The International docked in New Orleans 54 days after leaving Liverpool, England, the first of second week in April. After having experienced sea sickness, childbirth, scurvy, sea rations and everything else associated with a sea journey at that time, I can only imagine their relieve to finally have their feet touching terra firma. I am sure that the thought crossed their minds, “at least we have the worst behind us”.
As I mentioned in a previous post, the journey from Liverpool, England to Salt Lake City, Utah took 221 days. They had just completed 54 days of the journey. I am pretty sure that they had no idea at this point what lay ahead of them in the next 167 days.
The next stage was to catch a streamer up the Mississippi river to Keokuk, Iowa. Not all passengers on the International traveled using the same steamer. Before traveling up the Mississippi, men would worked in the sugarhouse earning a dollar a day to help with the expenses. It does not mention when the Dennings and Williams made it to Keokuk, only that they were part of the Jacob Gates Company, formed on June 10, 1853.
As part of the ten-pound company (people would pay 10 pounds for the trip to Salt Lake), the emigrants were told they could each have one hundred pounds of luggage. However, by the time they reached Keokuk, the were told that they could only take between fifty and seventy-five pounds of belongings. Many of them left behind their books and heavy pots and pans.
The Jacob Gates Company was formed with 262 people, divided into groups of fifties and tens. Thirty-three wagons were outfitted for the journey. The greatest difficulty in the preparation came when a herd of “wild Texas cattle with horns like like a rainbow” arrived in camp. The Englishmen had never experienced cattle driving and didn’t know a “yoke from a bow or a steer from a heifer.” As soon as the Company got used to the cattle, they were able to move ahead through a wet and muddy Iowa countryside.
A typical day began at 5:00 a.m. with a wake-up call. The emigrants would eat breakfast and take down their tents. Bread dough was made in the morning so it could be cooked that evening. Bedtime was 9:00 p.m. The wagons were placed in a circle so the animals could be places in the center. On the outside of the circle, the tents were pitched. The roads were muddy and the grass was waist high, which was very trying for the company. One member of the Company, Joseph Greaves, wrote that during the difficult trek through Iowa, he lay down at night and cussed the day he was born. The muddy conditions also made the mosquitoes plentiful. James Farmer, another diarist, recorded:
Most of the Saints felt worn out for the want of rest as many had not slept for several nights owing to the mosquitoes, but the Lord sent an East wind and blew them away and we got a good night’s rest.
Once the Company passed the Missouri River, the trail conditions greatly improved. However, other hazards threatened the pioneers. They had several people struck by lightning. They had a number of encounters with Indians, sharing some of their limited provisions. They were also visited by thousands of grasshoppers. The grasshoppers fell from the sky like rain and covered the wagons, tents, beds and tables. Later it was notice that though the grasshoppers were quite a menace, they destroyed the mosquitoes that had been menacing the pioneers.
As the Jacob Gates continues west, their supplies began to run out. On August 20th, they reached Fort Laramie where flour could be purchased at $15 a sack. They were advied to take a new road to avoid some alkaline water in hope of saving some of their cattle. The cattle suffered anyway. Captain Gates quickened their pace, not even stopping on Sundays, to save as much food supplies and cattle as possible. By September 3rd, they reached Independence Rock. Many of the pioneers stopped and wrote their names on the rock.
The people and the cattle continued to starve. When the cattle could no longer be used to pull wagons, they were unhitched and driven in front of the wagon train. When the cattle couldn’t continue, they were butchered and eaten by the Company. When one member of the Company was sick and near death, he told the others that between taking care of the cattle, gathering wood, fetching water, and standing guard at night, he had had enough. He wanted inscribed on his epitaph, “I am murdered by the unwise procedure of the Ten Pound Company.”
Jacob Gates sent a man ahead to Salt Lake on their only horse to get extra provisions. He brought back watermelons, potatoes, and two hundred pounds of flour. When Brigham Young heard of the their short rations, he said that this was to be the last of the ten-pound companies. The Company entered the Salt Lake Valley on September 30th, begging for food at every home they passed. As the reached the old Union Square, ther belongings were dumped out of the wagons and the pioneers were left to begin a new life.
Now the question was, what to do with their lives. Everything they owned lie in the street in a pile. At this point John Williams went to Box Elder with the Welsh Saints. James Denning stayed in Salt Lake helping to build the block wall around the temple. He then settled in Bountiful, Utah. He was later was asked to settle in Big Cottonwood Canyon (Brighton). It would be several years before the Merrifield sisters would see each other.