On The Trail With The Carsons 1851 - Part 1

 

Exactly one hundred and fifty years ago the family of George and Ann Carson set out on its trek from Garden Grove to the Great Salt Lake Valley. During the coming weeks and months we plan on sending you weekly e-mail updates of their journey, with information on the trek, their route, the family and the other families they traveled with. We will celebrate the births of several babies, their adventures with Indians and buffaloes, and learn about the frightening stampedes which terrorized their journey. We will introduce several young people who will meet on the trek and eventually marry each other in Utah. Two members of the company will die enroute.

The Carsons and those that traveled with them called their wagon train the Garden Grove Company and also the Harry Walton Company, after the young man they chose as their captain. Unfortunately no member of the company left a complete account of the journey. In our Carson family histories we have a few precious reminiscences that were preserved. Three young people from other families however left more complete histories - written sixty years or more after their trek.

Susan Zimmerman was 12 when she walked from Garden Grove to the Great Salt Lake Valley. When she was 78 she wrote a letter to Andrew Jensen, the Church Historian, giving a short account of the trip, and - most importantly - a list of all those she could remember who had made up the Company. Her memory was remarkable. In my research, I have only found records of a few others that traveled with the company. That she should recall the names of more than 80 people and their relationships is an indication of the impact that the journey must have made upon her young mind. Using her list I have looked at the family histories written by the other families for additional details about the trip.

The Critchlow family left an account that provides the greatest number of stories about the journey. Benjamin Chamberlain Critchlow was 16 when he crossed the plains. Rebecca Card Walton, the 15 year old bride of Dana Walton, will also provide some interesting details.

Most of the families in the company know each other. They have been neighbors and friends in Garden Grove since being forced from their homes and farms in and around Nauvoo. Most of the families are multi-generational, with parents and unmarried children in one wagon, and married children and grandchildren in accompanying wagons. Several of the families have become related through the marriages of their children.

The spring has been particularly wet and the streams and rivers are swollen. The company, which left Garden Grove on May 17th, has decided to travel north in the hopes of finding places to cross the rivers where the waters are lower. It will take them one hundred and fifty miles off the standard trail.

We do not know how many wagons the Carsons traveled in, but it is reasonable to suppose that George and Ann had a wagon with their unmarried sons: David and George, both age 23, and Washington, age 21. William Huff Carson and his wife Corilla are traveling with four children, ages four to twelve. Corilla is seven months pregnant.

John Carson and his wife Elvira are traveling with three children, ages three to eight, and an infant of just fourteen months.
George and Ann's daughter Elizabeth is with her husband, Patison Delos Griffeth and two young children, ages two and four. Elizabeth is five months pregnant.

Another daughter, Mary Ann (Polly) is with her husband Thomas Ewing. Susan Zimmerman remembered Polly traveling with an infant, but there is no record of such a child. Perhaps Polly was helping by taking care of John and Elvira's little girl, Sarah Ann.

Next week we'll build a raft, and cross the Nishnabotna.

 

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Part 2