The Vanguard Company
The first company to enter the Salt Lake Valley.
After the exodus from Nauvoo early in 1846, Church members stayed at Winter Quarters until the spring of 1847. At that time Church leaders selected a body of men to travel by wagon to the Rocky Mountains and pioneer the way for following thousands. This group consisted of 143 men, 3 women and 2 children. They traveled with 72 wagons, 93 horses, 52 mules, 66 oxen, 19 cows, 17 dogs and Harriet’s chickens. Others later joined this group, while some returned east as guides.
The first westward wagons, led by Heber C. Kimball, left Winter Quarters on April 5, 1847, and traveled to a camp at the Elkhorn River, some 20 miles from Winter Quarters. Over the next few days, other wagons joined this group. Wagons led by Wilford Woodruff, Orson Pratt, and Brigham Young joined the group at the Elkhorn River on April 7, after pausing for conference in Winter Quarters on the morning of April 6. On April 15, the rest of the Quorum of the Twelve arrived from Winter Quarters. On April 16, the entire company was organized with captains of hundreds, fifties, and tens. The company crossed the Elkhorn River (a tributary of the Platte River), by ferrying each wagon on a raft of logs.
Many other westward companies were traveling to Oregon, including those from areas where the Mormons had suffered persecution, and the Mormons preferred to keep the Platte River between themselves and the Oregon-bound travelers. Thus, through Nebraska, the Mormon Pioneer Trail is on the north side of the Platte and the Oregon Trail is on the south side.
As the entire Mormon Trail was in Indian country, night guards were appointed and all in the company were instructed to have their weapons ready at all times. A piece of leather was kept over each weapon’s firing mechanism to keep it dry. Wagons traveled in double file for safety. At night, the wagons formed a “circular fortification.” The forward wheel of one wagon was locked into the hind wheel of the next. Animals were tethered within.
A typical day began with a bugle at 5 a.m. when each man was expected to arise and pray, prepare breakfast and lunch, care for his team, and be ready to pull out at 7 a.m. The company generally “nooned” for two hours at midday, then continued until evening. The night bugle sounded at 8:30 p.m. for prayers; fires were to be out by 9 p.m. As the company traveled, hunters most commonly bagged buffalo and antelope.
The first days of the early spring journey in April 1847 were bitterly cold with chilling prairie winds and sometimes snow. However, the weather gradually turned mild and rains replaced snow; cold nights, especially at high altitudes, accompanied the pioneers during most of the trip.
On April 19, William Clayton suggested to Orson Pratt that a set of wooden cogs, a pioneer odometer, be created and attached to the wheels of a wagon to measure the exact number of miles traveled in a day. Elder Pratt designed a set of cogs that Appleton Milo Harmon, a carpenter, built. Today, the town of North Platte, marks where pioneers began using their “roadometer.”
Crossing the Loup Fork of the Platte River, the company encountered quicksand so strong they said it “rattled the wagons.” Indians often approached the wagon train for food and gifts. As the wagons rumbled on, dryness replaced the rain, and clouds of dust hung over the wagon train.
Indians were said to often follow a wagon train for hundreds of miles awaiting a chance to make off with livestock. This wagon train occasionally lost animals despite the careful watching of guards.
One night the cannon carried by the party was fired twice to discourage Indians from attacking. On May 4, the near presence of a large Indian war party was so threatening that the wagons traveled five abreast. Despite such troubles on the north side of the Platte, they remained on that side of the river to make a route for others to follow. A group of 10-12 men worked daily to make a road for those following. Sometimes they burned old grass so companies behind would have new grass.
The first buffalo were killed for food on May 1. Although the pioneers rejoiced to be in buffalo country, the huge beasts by their very numbers became a mixed blessing. While the beasts provided a ready source of fresh meat, their massive herds consumed the prairie grass and brought a constant threat of stampede. Finding grass for the stock became a continual problem.
Early in May, the pioneers’ path was filled with buffalo. It appeared as if “the face of the earth was alive and moving like the waves of the sea,” wrote Wilford Woodruff. The prairie was “literally black with buffalo,” wrote William Clayton.
However, the men were forbidden to kill the massive bison except to provide meat for the camp. Rotting carcasses shot by other travelers created a stench in some places.
Wagons forded creeks and rivers, crossed sand dunes, and jolted down bluffs. Spirits remained high, but occasionally cross words were spoken, or behavior was deemed inappropriate. President Young occasionally lectured the group for such things as over-hunting and wasting meat, rowdiness, loudness, not keeping to their duties, rising late, or idleness. His lectures evidently had the desired effect because the group eventually became reformed and unified.
The pioneers reached Chimney Rock, Neb., the psychological if not actual halfway point, on May 26. From then on, the relentless monotony of the plains began to give way to bluffs and rock formations. On May 31 the pioneers entered what is now Wyoming, where the prairie became “naked” and some learned to enjoy eating prickly pears, a small cactus. Here they began to mount the eastern incline of the Rocky Mountain range, and the large buffalo herds disappeared behind them. The way was mostly up canyons carved by streams where they often crossed and re-crossed the same stream several times. After seven weeks on the trail, the company arrived at Fort Laramie, Wyo., where they were met by a group of 14 families, some of whom were not Mormons, who anticipated the westward trek by a year and wintered with the Mississippi Saints in Pueblo. In Pueblo, the Mississippi Saints were joined by some of the sick detachments of the Mormon Battalion. President Young sent Amasa Lyman and others to bring the group west as soon as possible. The size of the original group grew to 161 people and 15 tens.
The way became more mountainous, and wagons were rafted over streams, double-teamed to pull up steep inclines, and wheel-locked to slide down sharp hills. Camp meat changed from buffalo to black-tail deer. Geological anomalies were occasionally encountered, such as a petroleum spring, from which they greased their wagons, hot springs where they washed clothing, and pure ice from a sulfur spring.
Pioneers forded the north fork of the Plate River and here joined the Oregon Trail and began to travel near Oregon pioneers. Among these companies were Missourians, some previously persecutors of the Church, with whom the Mormon pioneers had an uneasy but peaceful relationship. At Fort Laramie, Mormon pioneers learned that Lilburn Boggs, former governor of Missouri who had issued the infamous “Extermination Order,” had been on the trail earlier. The Mormons fixed a wagon spring of the Missourians, ferried them across the Platte River for a profit, and even rescued one who was drowning. The Missourians occasionally assisted and fed members of the pioneer company. Thereafter, relations improved a bit.
In the mountains, the foresight of the pioneers was often rewarded. A boat, dubbed the “Revenue Cutter” was used as a wagon box on the plains. At streams, it was used as a ferry that carried up to 1,500 – 1,800 pounds. It was loaded with goods from wagon boxes so wagons crossed more easily. In addition, the boat was used to ferry Oregon immigrant companies, earning needed food and some cash. Small streams often were banked with ample grass for the livestock, although animals and humans were plagued by swarms of mosquitoes.
On June 26 the pioneers crossed the fabled South Pass, the slope that divided the East Coast drainage from the western drainage. Two days later, frontiersman Jim Bridger met the company and spent the night with them. Hoping for details, the pioneers were disappointed at the rambling accounts he offered. Another unexpected visitor met the company on July 2 – Sam Brannan, captain of the ship Brooklyn, which had taken a company of Saints around the horn of South America and landed in Yerba Buena, now San Francisco. He had come from California and tried to persuade the pioneers to alter their plans to go to California instead of Salt Lake. But Brigham Young was unswayed and Brannan continued east. On July 4 soldiers from the Mormon Battalion sick detachment, traveling ahead of Amasa Lyman’s Mississippi Saints, overtook the company. Three rousing cheers from the pioneer company welcomed the soldiers.
They reached Fort Bridger on July 7. During this time, “Mountain Fever” affected many in the camp. A number suffered from fever, delirium, flashes, and muscle pain. When Brigham Young suffered the illness, it eventually slowed the entire company. The last leg of the journey was the most difficult. Leaving the Oregon Trail at Fort Bridger, they followed the Hasting’s Cutoff, a direct route to the Great Salt Lake. Traveling this route meant following the tracks of the Donner Party wagons from the previous season, tracks barely discernible in the tall summer grass. Steep ridges and narrow openings in the mountains, compounded by large rocks and fallen trees, made the final part of the journey the most laborious.
The company halted for three days when Brigham Young suffered from mountain fever in mid-July. On July 13, feeling an urgency to continue, Heber C. Kimball organized an advance guard of 43 men in 23 wagons to blaze a trail to Salt Lake Valley and begin planting as soon as they arrived in the valley. A rear guard accompanied the Church president.
The advance company searched out the route down Echo Canyon in northeast Utah and spent time filling in ravines, removing tree stumps, and making a road. Still, the ride down the narrow canyon was hard on wagons that occasionally broke under the strain. The pioneers hacked out willows and criss-crossed mountain streams. They hauled over high ridges with disheartening views of seemingly endless ranges of mountains in all directions. They hacked their way through a tangle of willow, poplar, and birch trees 20 feet high. But climbing what is now known as Big Mountain on July 21, some 12 miles above Salt Lake Valley, the landscape opened to a brief view of the valley below. To Orson Pratt, who climbed a hill to get a better look, the view was overwhelming.
“We could not refrain from a shout of joy which almost involuntarily escaped our lips,” he wrote.
The pioneers’ animals were near exhaustion that day as they labored upward of 10 hours without eating. Encouraged by the view, pioneers continued over Little Mountain, the last climb before the Salt Lake Valley.
They wisely cut a trail at the mouth of what is now Emigration Canyon to avoid climbing a steep mountain as the Donner Party had done a year earlier, costing it precious days.
All but the rear guard entered the valley by July 22, 1847. On July 23, the pioneers held a prayer of gratitude and began to plow and plant potatoes, corn, buckwheat, and beans. They flooded the parched land with creek water.
It was Wilford Woodruff who recalled the immortal moment of Brigham Young’s entry on July 24. Elder Woodruff pulled his wagon to a halt to give the leader, who was still weak from mountain fever, a full view.
The ailing leader peered out over the broad valley that stretched out below. “It is enough,” said Brigham Young. “This is the right place. Drive on.”
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