Individual

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Elenor Kingsley

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Benjamin C. Critchlow reminiscences, circa 1865

Benjamin C. Critchlow reminiscences, circa 1865, Page 6-9.

Nearly all the Saints living in Garden Grove including our family left in the spring of 1851 to go to Utah. It proved to be very rainy weather, even the small creeks had to be bridged. When we came to the Nihanybotony [Nishnabotna], the men had to cut down large trees, arrange them in sort of a canoe, pin them together into kind of boat shape or raft on which our wagons were floated across the stream.
After being some weeks on the road, we reached Council Bluffs. Our company was joined by others and numbered 60 wagons and was known by the name of Garden Grove Company. Harry Walton was made captain because he had crossed the plains previously to Utah. After crossing the Missouri River, we camped at a place called Winter Quarters where the first company remained the winter of 1846 and 1847. The weather continued rainy and the Horn overflowed its banks. Several companies, ours with the rest, started to go around the head of the stream. After several days the companies were able to cross the stream by bridging to an island on the opposite bank. L.A. Shirtliff and Isaac Allred, captains of two other companies, traveled near by our company, sometimes on the lead and sometimes on the rear.
The first stampede we knew of took place in Allred’s company. Oxen becoming frightened without any known cause, would start up with full speed sometimes breaking wagons and doing other damage. We were now in a wild uninhabited country and the cattle manifested an uneasy, restless spirit.
We soon came to what is known as Sand Hills of Nebraska and had changed our course from Northwest to a southwest direction to intercept the road the pioneers had traveled. At early dawn one morning four horses were stolen by Indians. While journeying on as usual one day, all of a sudden thirty of the sixty teams stampeded. One woman, a sister [Ellen] Kingsley, was run over by William Barton’s wagon and killed. Three wagons were broken. Our outfit was the hind most among those stampeding and consisted of one yoke of oxen, two yokes of cows, and a mare hitched on the lead. Instead of following other teams ahead, the mare led the teams in a half circle towards the rear of the train and came to a stand still; thus no damage was done to the family. After repairs had been made, we journeyed on always on the look out for signs of more stampeding. When we halted for the night, we formed our wagons to make a corral—something in the pattern of a horseshoe. The wagons were arranged so that the front wheel of one wagon would interlock with the hind wheel of the wagon ahead of it. The cattle were driven into this enclosure and guards were placed at the horseshoe entrance to hold the cattle until morning. One night while so corralled, the cattle stampeded in spite of guards, and in the morning only one cow was in sight and that was ours. She always kept away from other cattle and her peculiar habit finally cost her her life. (After we came to the “valley”, the coyotes finding her alone one winter night had a feast.) I remember the night that the cattle stampeded: when my father was told about it, he became so affected that his nerves gave way and his agitation was so great that he shook violently, thus shaking the wagon. This was probably because he was unable to walk a step. Having our teams all gone and being in the midst of a desolate wilderness was enough to make peculiar thoughts pass through his mind. After searching surrounding country for three days[,] we found all but 20 head of cattle and we were enabled to proceed on our journey. I remember that while crossing the Loop [Loup] Fork of the Platt[e] River, even though the stream was shallow, the bottom was composed of a kind of quick-sand. So unless one was constantly on the move[,] a wagon or team would settle in the sand and become unmovable. The movement of the wheels through the sand would cause a continual jarring and shaking of the wagon.
After all our round-about journey when we came to the main road, we met the other companies who had remained back until the water subsided, and they were just as far on their journey as we were. Some four or five hundred miles of our journey is partially a blank in my mind because I was stricken with Mountain Fever and I knew very little of what went on. Later I was tild [told] that I came near to death.
Our next experience was with buffalo. There appeared to be thousands of them passing to the north across our road. Our train was divided into two sections and we halted to let the buffalo pass through. My brother William stood on the top part of our wagon and used the ox whip to keep the buffalo from crowding against us. The remainder of our journey was uneventful.
We arrived in Salt Lake City the latter part of September [September 24, 1851][,] where we remained at the home of Bishop Hickenlooper for two weeks. Bishop Hickenlooper’s first wife was a sister to my mother.

Transcript for Critchlow, Benjamin Chamberlain, Reminiscences [ca. 1865], 6-9

Benjamin C. Critchlow reminiscences, circa 1865.

Critchlow and related families: the life histories, writings and genealogies of William Critchlow, Benjamin Chamberlin Critchlow and Elizabeth Frances Fellows Critchlow and their families

Critchlow and related families: the life histories, writings and genealogies of William Critchlow, Benjamin Chamberlin Critchlow and Elizabeth Frances Fellows Critchlow and their families, Page 101-104.

Nearly all the Saints living in Garden Grove left there in the spring af 1851, to come to Utah, including our family. It proved to be a very rainy season. Small creeks had to be bridged. When we came to the Nishnabotna, the men had to cut down large trees, cut them into a sort of canoe, joining them together making a kind of boat or raft on which our wagons were floated across the stream.
After being some weeks on the road, we reached Council Bluffs. Our company was joined by others and numbered 60 wagons and was known by the name of the Garden Grove company. Harry Walton was made captain on account of having crossed to Utah previously.
After crossing [the] Missouri River, we camped at a place called Winter Quarters, where the first companies remained in the winter of 1846 and 47. The weather continued rainy and the Horn River overflowed its banks. Several companies, ours with the rest, started to go around the head of the stream. After several days, the companies were able to cross the stream by bridging to an island and [then] on to the opposite bank.
Luman A. Shurtliff and Isaac Allred, captains of two other companies, travelled near by, with our companies sometimes in the lead and sometimes in the rear. The first stampede we knew of took place in Allred's company. Oxen became frightened without any known cause [and] would start up with full speed, sometimes breaking wagons and [causing] other damage. We were now in a wild uninhabited country, and the cattle manifested an uneasy and restless feeling.
We soon came to what is known now as the sand hills of Nebraska and had changed our course from a northwest to a southwest direction to intercept the roadthe Pioneers had travelled. Four horses were stolen one morning by Indians at early dawn.
While journeying on as usual one day, all in an instant thirty of the sixty teams stampeded. One woman, a Sister [Ellen] Kingsley, was killed by being run over by Wm. Barton's wagon, and three wagons were broken. Our team was the hindmost among those stampeding and consisted of one yoke of oxen, two yokes of cows and a mare hitched on the lead. Instead of following [the] other teams ahead, the mare led the team in a half circle towards the rear of the train and came to stand without damage to our family.
After repairs to broken wagons, we journey[ed] on, all the time on the lookout for possibly more stampeding. When we halted far the night, we formed our wagons to make a corral, something after the pattern of a horseshoe. The wagons were so arranged that the front wheels of one wagon interlocked with the hind wheel of the wagon ahead, the fronts of the wagons pointing outward from the corral. The cattle were driven into this enclosure nights and guards were placed at the horseshoe entrance to hold the cattle till morning.
One night, while so corralled, the cattle stampeded in spite of the guards and in the morning but one cow was in sight and that was our cow, who always kept away from other cattle, and her peculiar habit cost her her life after we came to the valley; the coyotes finding her alone that winter had a feast.
I remember that night when they said the cattle were all gone that father's [William Coe Critchlow's] nerves were so affected that his agitation was so great as to shake the wagon; himself unable to walk a step, our teams all gone, and [being] in the midst of a desolate wilderness was enough to make anyone so situated have peculiar thoughts pass through their minds.
After three days of searching over the surrounding¬ country, all but twenty head of cattle were found, and we were enabled to proceed on our journey. I remember while crossing the Loup Fork of Platte River that while the stream was a shallow one, its bottom was composed of a kind of quicksand so that unless constantly on the move, wagon and team would settle in the sand and become immovable. The movement of the wheels through the sand would cause a continual jarring or shaking of the wagon.
After all our aroundabout journey, we came into [the] main road and met with other companies who had remained back until the water had subsided and at the time were as far in advance on their journey [as] our companies were.
Some 4 or 500 miles of the ensuing part of our journey is partially a blank in my mind because of [my] having been stricken with mountain fever, of which I was told I came near to death.
The next was our experience with buffalo. There appeared to be hundreds of thousands of [them] passing to the North across our road. Our train was divided upinto sections and halted for some time to let the buffalo pass through. My brother William [Fuller Critchlow] on the back part of our wagon [was] using the ox whip to keep the buffalo from crowding against us. The journey from now on was uneventful.
We arrived in Salt Lake City the latter part of September [September 24, 1851] . . .

Transcript for Critchlow, Benjamin Chamberlin, [Autobiography], in Georgina Bolette Critchlow Bickmore, Charlotte Rhoda Critchlow Ryberg, and Frances Elizabeth Critchlow, ed., Critchlow and Related Families, 101-4

Critchlow and related families: the life histories, writings and genealogies of William Critchlow, Benjamin Chamberlin Critchlow and Elizabeth Frances Fellows Critchlow and their families.

Elizabeth Zimmerman Lamb, Biographical information relating to Mormon pioneer overland travel database, 2003-2017

Elizabeth Zimmerman Lamb, Biographical information relating to Mormon pioneer overland travel database, 2003-2017.

We left Garden Grove the 17 of May, 1851. Arrived in Salt Lake City 24 September, 1851. Father [George Gotleib Zimmerman] was old and never drove oxen so we got a boy to drive our team, Al[mond] Clyde. There were about 20 families of us a number of young folks. There were more joining our company when we left Winter Quarters. Our number was 50 families and 60 wagons. Harry Walton was our captain, he had traveled the road before. We stayed in Mount Pisgah several days. It was very rainy that spring and lots of mud and heavy loads. When we got to Winter Quarters our team consisted of one yoke of oxen, one of steers, one of cows. When we got near the old camp ground, our lead steers turned and led the team into a slough to get a drink and turned out wagon over into the water. Our things, most of all got wet so did the bedding. We camped 2 nights and had a gay time drying our things and a good time sleeping with most of our bedding wet but none of us took cold. The Elk Horn River was so high we could not cross it so we had to head it and had to travel several hundred miles further. Apostle Hyde took charge of 5 or 6 company. There was no road and it drilled our teams. It took us one month longer. It was a wild country. Thousands of buffalo could be seen. One day we could hear them come a roaring noise when they were miles away. They came straight for our train. We could not get out of the way so half of the teams stopped and the others went on. As they came up the hill and passed between the wagons, ours was the second one that stopped. It was a fine sight to look at. We had to give them room or they would have run over our teams. There was about five thousand of them. It took such a long time for them to pass. The men put ropes on the oxen horns and loosed them from the wagons. The women and children got in the wagons. It was a scary time for our cattle were so afraid of them. We had some of their meat. It was fine we could cut it in slices, salt it, and string it on sticks and jerk it over the fire to let it dry. It was sweet and good. We were in a wild country. Our cattle got so they could hardly be controlled. There were a good many stampedes.



Whole trains would run at breakneck speed. Spect half of our teams stampeded. One woman by the name of Ellen Weingsley [Kingsley] jumped from her wagon, as she did so the next team and wagon run over her and she never breathed again. She left one child and sister. It was hard for them to leave her in that lonely spot. She was washed and dressed and some goods box put in the grave and she was put in and left. One day we travelled, all day till dark in deep sand. We had no water only what we were hauling. It was very hot and our teams almost perished. When we got to water it was a warm slough and full of live wrigglers. We strained and boiled it before we could use it. Then set it in the slough to cool it. In the night the buffaloes came near enough to frighten our teams and they stampeded so we had to camp there all day. We all washed in the boiling hot sun with no wood. The men had to hunt all day for them and found some with the buffaloes and had hard work to get them. One of our cows was with them. She was so wild they had to lasso her so they could milk her for the boys were almost perished. They said they could never have reached camp without a drink so she saved them. They were so glad she was there. Sister [Mary Ann Hales] T[h]om[p]son (who was Sister M. I. Horn's mother) died and was buried by the Platte River. The lonesomest night I ever spent, Betsy Crooks and I set up with her. There were a few wagons camped to one side so as to be out of the noise. We could hear the buffalo pass to go to the river. They made such a roaring noise we were frightened. There were 2 births in camp. There were many interesting things to see such as the Chimney Rock, the Lone Tree, the Devil's Gate, and a cave we went in to it, Independence Rock, we would climb on rocks, almost mountains. I often think it was dangerous. We might have run among wild beasts.



Two or three days before we came to Salt Lake, Sister Farrer sent us some garden stuff by boy and sent some to all the company, but he sold some of it, that vexed her, but we did enjoy it after not having green all summer. We never forgot her kindness to us. We had many good times. We would camp at night, get supper make our beds and our chores would be done. When the boys would scrape of the grass and we would dance as if we were not tired. We had 2 good fiddlers and several good callers in camps. The men had to stand guard every night, 7 till 12, then 12 till morning, rain or shine. Sometimes it would rain and the mud would be hub deep. We would have to double teams from 6 to 8 yoke of oxen on a wagon. We crossed one stream, it was so deep and no timber to build a bridge, so they cut long grass and put it in and a few wagons crossed and they had to put in more. We camped on one side of the stream one night and on the other side the next morning and the men worked so hard all day. There was 2 wagons emptied and put into the stream, one behind the other and the women and children walked over. That was fine for us all to sit in the boiling sun all day on the grass. For a long time we had to burn buffalo chips as we called them or dung. There was no wood to get. Then we got to wild sage, it was worse than the chips. The first night to it, oh how sick I got of the smell. We had to do all our cooking with it everything was seasoned with it. When the wind blew, we could not relish our meals, but the Lord provided for our needs.



We used tar to grease our wagons with the tar was carried in buckets swung under the wagons. We were getting short, but came to a tar spring. The men filled the buckets with tar. I did not see the spring but saw the tar. It was so far for the women to walk so we missed seeing it. Our supply was flour, meal, beans, dried bread, crackers, dried apples, sugar and milk, with some butter and bacon and a few dried parsnips. No wonder we were glad to get something out of a garden.



One man killed a very large tortoise and divided it to 5 or 6 families only kept one meal for themselves. It was fine, it was the only one I ever tasted. Our company was heavy loaded and had to walk so much. I have walked 20 miles in one day. We had good health all the time for which we thanked the Lord many times. It was fun to see the green teamsters drive unruly teams. They would run around behind their wagons to head their teams if they were off. I will relate one incident of the hundred that I saw. . .



One man, a clothesman, he has a 3 yoke on his wagon. He never handled a team before. He was a blacksmith and had his heavy tools in his wagon, oh the times he had. One day we crossed a stream and had to go up a long steep hill, all had to double teams when his wagon got part way up the hill the chain next to the tongue broke. The wagon and the wheelers went back in the creek so the end gate dipped water and most of the things got wet. The wagon had to be unloaded.



All along the route, if any man had a mean ox he would sell it to the Saints. We had the largest ox in the company. He could start the load himself, but if he took a notion not to pull, they could not make him. He was good most of the time.



We left Garden Grove the 17 of May and arrived in Salt Lake the 24 of September in good health, . . . . When we were crossing the plains we came to large beds of salaratus [saleratus], white as snow. We gathered some, it made good bread, we brought some with us. It was all the kind of soda we used. That is all the settled used it.



Source: http://www.esu3.k12.ne.us/districts/elkhorn/ms/curriculum/Zimmerman.html (accessed 18 March 2005)

Transcript for Elizabeth Zimmerman Lamb, Biographical information relating to Mormon pioneer overland travel database, 2003-2017

Genealogical information on the Crooks family, circa 1955

George Crooks diary

"George Crooks diary", Genealogical information on the Crooks family, circa 1955, Page 15-16.

Transcript for Crooks, George, [Diary excerpts], in Elna P. Atchison, [Genealogical information on the Crooks family, ca. 1955], 15-16

Genealogical information on the Crooks family, circa 1955.

Historical Department journal history of the Church, 1830-2008

Historical Department journal history of the Church, 1830-2008. Supplement after 31 December 1851: Page 8.

Historical Department journal history of the Church, 1830-2008.

Jane Rio Griffiths Baker diary

Jane Rio Griffiths Baker diary, January 1851, Page 9-55.

Transcript for Jane Rio Griffiths Baker diary, 1851 January-1852 March and 1869 September-1880 May, 9-55

Jane Rio Griffiths Baker diary.

Nauvoo Temple Endowment Register

Nauvoo Temple Endowment Register.

Ossian F. Taylor journal, 1851 April-September

Ossian F. Taylor journal, April 1851.

Transcript for Ossian F. Taylor journal, 1851 April-September

Ossian F. Taylor journal, 1851 April-September.

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