Eliza Camp (1833 - 1894) Profile

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Eliza Camp

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"A Tribute of Love," Woman's Exponent

"A Tribute of Love," Woman's Exponent, October 15, 1894.

"A Tribute of Love," Woman's Exponent.

Elizabeth W. [Sermon] Camm letter, San Francisco, California, to My Dear Children

Elizabeth W. [Sermon] Camm letter, San Francisco, California, to My Dear Children, March 1892.

Transcript for Elizabeth W. [Sermon] Camm letter, San Francisco, California, to My Dear Children, 1892 March 16

Elizabeth W. [Sermon] Camm letter, San Francisco, California, to My Dear Children.

Elizabeth Whittear (Sermon) Camm reminiscence in Cache Valley historical material, circa 1955

Elizabeth Whittear (Sermon) Camm reminiscence in Cache Valley historical material, circa 1955.

Among one company that arrived were some very dear friends, which I did not expect to see; but which made my heart rejoice. They were Brother and Sister Binder; they have ever been good, kind friends to me and my heart is full of gratitude to them and many others. But I am not telling you about my journey; there are many incidents which I do not remember. We at last bought our cart, paid our emigration from Iowa to Salt Lake City, started with my husband, myself and childredn [children], John, age nine, Henry, seven; Robert, five, and Marian three. Seventy-five pounds of bedding and other clothing, three days’ provisions and one cart with tents and another with poles and bake kettle, my little girl and boy in the cart. My heart was happy and I rejoiced and sang the songs of Zion. My only hope and desire was to reach the Valley where my childredn could be raised in the true Gospel. There was a little I forgot to state, that was our cloth<s>e</s>ing had to be sold at auction on the camping grounds, as the wagon which was to have brought our luggage and the childredn and sick, was loaded down with merchandise. My bed, sixty pounds, was sold for four dollars, my sheets, boots, shoes and my clothing, but a basque were sold. I remember my old dress split every time I stooped. I had no stockings or shoes. Well, I kept up pretty well; work was hard, bed was hard, but still my shoulders were to the wheel and I think I pulled first fate [rate] for a beginner in shafts. They said, “Sister Sermon will get to Zion; she draws well.” I think it was my faith did it mostly, but it weakened some before my journey was completed, but not lost. Each day we increased in miles, and as I thought, journeyed like the Children of Israel, full of good feelings and song. When we got out on the prairie, they emptied a wagon of flour and put one hundred pounds on each cart, which we had to draw, and our children walked. We were very hungry, but did not dare touch only our allowances, one pound for each adult and one fourth for each child. I would make a scone cake, but we could eat it all in one meal. My husband’s health began to fail and his heart almost broken to see me pulling in shafts. Myself and childredn hungry, almost naked, footsore, and himself nearly done for. Many trials came after this. My oldest boy had the mountain fever, we had to haul him in the cart, there was no room in the wagon. One day we started him out before the carts in the morning to walk with the aged and sick, but we had not gone far on our journey before we found him lying by the roadside, unable to go farther. I picked him up and put him on my back and drew my cart as well, but could not manage far, so put him in the cart, which made three children and my luggage. My husband failing more each day, the captain put a young man to help me for a short time. My other son Henry walked at seven years old, thirteen hundred miles with the exception of a few miles, which some farmers who lived between Iowa and Florence, Nebraska, would take up the children that had to walk and bring them along for a few miles, and some of them kindly gave them food to eat which I have no doubt was well received by the way in which it soon disappeared. I felt glad for my boy as I have no doubt most mothers would. I will here state there was no time crossing the rivers to stop and take off clothing, but had to wade through and draw our carts at the same time with our clothes dripping wet[,] had to dry in the sun and dust as merrily on our way we go until we reach the valley, oh, like a herd of stock or something worse. I was thinking the handcart system was not very pleasant, yet I thought it was the fault of the captain, but I had to learn that which I had not calculated on. Some days we made good time, some days a cart would break down or a child would be missing or a death or more than one would happen, but in a few weeks we had to witness many deaths, many sorrows. Our food was giving out, cold weather chilled the body, the result death. One fourth pound of flour for adults, two ounces for a child, starvation for us. We had to make porridge with our flour as the allotment was too small to bake bread. Many cruel and painful things happening, the dying and dear all around us, poor souls would sit down by the roadside and would never move again until carried into camp on handcarts by someone. It is a wonder any of us lived through it. My dear husband’s health still failing, a young woman by the name of Caroline Marchant assisted me with the cart. I believe she married a Bishop Herrick of Ogden. I have heard nothing of her since we stopped at the Devil’s Gate to cache the church merchandise. We stayed several days. Not far from here the captain called us together to tell us we must lay our bodies down. Were we willing to do so for the Gospel’s sake? Many poor half-starved men shouted with what remaining strength they had, ‘Aye”. But mothers could not say that and were quiet. We went back to our tents, food would have suited us then. My faith was in my Heavenly Father; I never lost that faith in Him. It is as sweet today to trust and my prayer is may I always trust Him. He is a friend that has never failed. My poor husband’s sufferings have always pained me and I never can forget them. Poor Rob’s feet began to freeze. I cannot remember the place; it was after wading a very deep river, the freezing commenced. We had no wood but sagebrush. I went out and cut the sage to keep the fire all night. Covered them up with their feet to the fire and cut some more and kept the fire as well as I could. My clothes froze stiff. Well, we got through that night. Your father could not walk now. He would get into wagon after wagon, only to be turned out. The cattle were giving out and everyone had their friends, but the friend, death, would soon end his sufferings. John and Rob had to ride, Henry walked, your father would take my arm and walk a little distance, fall on his knees with weakness. We moved from Devil’s Gate. I believe it was Brother David Kinball [Kimball] who carried us over a river. And a great many more besides us. My poor husband blessed him for so doing. After our food had given out as I said before we went to our tents to die. I always thought I could get through to Salt Lake City and I tried to encourage my husband, but he was starving. He had always lived good at home. There was a shout in camp. Brother Joseph A. Young had come on packed mules with Brother Little. Brought flour, meat and onions. I got one pound of flour and some meat and two onions. I chopped the fat off the meat real fine and made some dumplings. We made a good meal and blessed Brother Little and Joseph from the bottom of our hearts. Whenever I think of them my heart is filled with gratitude. We had seventy miles to get to the wagons that had been sent from Salt Lake City with food and clothing, and some clothing had come for us. Your father, after having some food and clothes, seemed to revive. He called you to him, and told you to be good children and to do all you could for me, and then he said to me, “God bless you, Eli,” that being the name he called me. “You have saved my life this time.”



I said, “We must hold out now and get to the wagons,” but we had to go back to the quarter of pound of flour and he sank under it. I think he would not have died if he had got food, but he was spared the trial ahead. We went to bed about three o’clock. He put his arm around me and said, “I am done,” and breathed his last. I called Brother John Oley. We sewed him up in a quilt with his clothes on, except his boots, which I put on my feet and wore them into Salt Lake City. A coat I put on John to keep him warm, which afterward went to Fort Bridger. Some friend tried to get it for me but did not succeed. Father was buried in the morning with two more in the grave. I stood like a s statue, bewildered, not a tear; The cold chills, even now as I write, creep over my body, for I feel I can still see the wolves waiting for their bodies as they would come down to camp before we left. Well, I went again into the cart as all that could had to walk to get to the wagons. Poor Rob had to ride from this time and sometimes John. Henry and Marian were with me. When I got into camp I would clear the snow away with a tin plate, gather my wood, get my bed clothes from the wagon—I was too weak to haul much—get my allowance of flour and carry the children to the fire, make their beds on the ground. The tent was frozen and the ground so hard we could not set it up. I think it was two weeks we were without tents. We went to bed without supper in order to get a little better breakfast. I found it some help to toast the raw hide on the coals and chew it; it helped to keep the hunger away, for I was feeling it rather keenly now. I had to take a portion of poor Robert’s feet off which pierced my very sould [soul]. I had to sever the leaders with a pair of scissors. Little did I think when I bought them in old England that they would be used for such a purpose. Every day some portion was decaying until the poor boy’s feet were all gone. Then John’s began to freeze; then after a while my own. We kept meeting some teams from Salt Lake City now, which rendered all the assistance they could. I remember asking one of the drivers to give me a cob of corn to eat. He looked so pitiful and said, “Oh, sister, I hate to refuse you but my horses haven’t enough to eat now, and I do not know how we will get back to Salt Lake.”



I said, “I ought not to have asked you, but myself and children are so hungery.”



He said, “Keep up your faith, sister.”



A loaf of bread would have given me great faith and satisfied a hungry stomach as well, but the bread was not many miles off. We got it and it was the sweetest bread we ever ate. One instance occurred. Poor brother [David] Blair had been in the life guards in London, I believe, a very tall thin man; he was starving and was eating a piece of griddle cake; another poor brother not as hungry asked for a piece of it. He said, “I cannot do it; I want it myself.” Poor fellow, he died in the night and so one after another passed away. Fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers and friends, many, many honest souls laid in mother earth. The brothers kept meeting us and some times we had a good cheery fire built for us when we got into camp. I was terribly put to for clothes to wrap my poor boy’s legs in, his feet all gone. I got all I could from the camp, then I used my underclothing until I had but two skirts left on my body, and as such I finished up my journey for my wardrobe would not be replenished where I was. At last the old handcart was laid by without a regret; we got to the wagons, were taken in and some days we rode all day and got a little more food. A severe storm came up. I think it was on the Sweet Water, but I was so troubled I forget all about the names of the places. My eldest boy John’s feet decaying, my boys both of them losing their limbs, their father dead, my own feet very painful, I thought, “Why can’t I die?” My first thought of [d]eath, Brother Patton took us in his wagon, blessed me for my integrity and blessed us with tea and bread and so with what food that was so kindly sent out to us from the people in Salt Lake, our lives were spared. On a bright Sunday morning we were met in Emigration Canyon by hundreds of people in buggies and wagons and horseback to see us. We stopped near the tithing house, many had their friends to meet them and take them to their homes. Nobody came for me.

Transcript for Elizabeth Whittear (Sermon) Camm reminiscence in Cache Valley historical material, circa 1955

"Immigration to Utah," Deseret News

"Immigration to Utah," Deseret News, October 15, 1856.

Transcript for "Immigration to Utah," Deseret News, 15 October 1856, 254

"Immigration to Utah," Deseret News.

John Watkins pioneer history, 1-5

John Watkins pioneer history, 1-5.

We started on our journey one fine day and raised our tents. We had a few yoke of oxen and wagons to carry the provisions and tents, while we had to haul on our hand-carts, our bedding, clothing, cooking utensils and children. I was bugler for the company. My duty was to call then [them] up in the morning, to come to prayers, when to march, pitch tents and go to bed. We were under the presidency and leadership of Edward Martin and Daniel Tyler, veterans of the Mormon Battalion.



While traveling through the state of Iowa with six hundred immigrants with hand-carts and dust of harvest weather four or five inches deep, the sun pouring down on our heads and the perspiration and wet dust streaming down our faces and in our throats, choking us so we could hardly breath and tantalized by the people coming out of their houses and telling us that was a (dam) hard way to serve the Lord, and how the young hoodlems would go ahead of the company to the next river or creek to ridicule our wives and daughters who had to raise their dresses out of the water to wade the streams as there was not many bridges in those days. Many of the amusing incidents of our journey through the states I must pass by briefly until I come to the main incident of our journey.



Our rations was one pound of flour for grown people and half rations for children and the work being so laborious that the young people got very hungry, myself included. The roads were very heavy, being sometimes sand, sometimes mud and sometimes dust, which made progress slow, much slower than had been calculated on, consequently when we got out on the prairie our food ran short, our rations were then cut down and half and finally to four ounces of flower [flour] a day to grown people and two ounces to children, which continued day after day making the people very hungry and weak. With cold weather and winter approaching while out on the prairie, we all were frightened and a council was called at which they all decided, under the circumstances, to lighten the loads to a few pounds each, which was w[e]ighed out to them with a pair of scales, leaving out quilts and blankets, overcoats, cooking utensils and everything that could be dispensed with which were put in a heap and set fire to for fear some one would be tempted to pick out something that they needed so badly. Every thing that human ingenuity could devise to try and save the lives of the people so they could get in early and the snows would not catch them in the South Pass and the Big and Little Mountains.



The night after we crossed the last crossing of the Platte river the snow started to fall and winter set in, finding us with scarcely any clothing and very little food. The cold and hunger was so intense that we stopped a day or two in camp and before we moved camp, buried fourteen people in one grave who died from cold and hunger; Up to this time a great number of our company had died through hunger and cold. The people who were to meet us from Salt Lake did not arrive as expected.



When at last the company arrived from Salt Lake with supplies it did not encrease our rations any. The only difference it made, our rations continued as they had been and if the relief had not come, in a few days we would have had no food at all. The company, when they started to our relief, had plenty of provisions but had met two or three companies on the road who were out of provisions and they had divided up with them so when they reached us, comparatively speaking, there was only a little left. We had been traveling many days in the snow and the cattle having nothing to eat, became so poor and emaciated that they would lie down and no persuasion or beating could induce them to go further. They being worn out with hunger and cold, were nothing but a stack of bones and were not worth the time it would take and the delay it would make to the company to kill them so they were left for the wolves to devour.



On one of these occasions I noticed an ox that could not be drove loose, was left to perish and I conceived the idea that if I went back in the night, I might kill it and thus get something that would help to sustain us. I told my plan to William L. Binder who occupied the same tent with me and invited him to help me kill the ox and bring in some of the remains but Binder’s feet were so badly frozen that he could not go and his wife prefered to go in his place. I did not like the idea of going alone, miles out on the prairie with another man’s wife, so I invited a man by the name of James Hunter to help us and share with the beef such it might be called.



We waited till after night fall and all the camp had retired to their beds and every sign of life had fled from the camp. Then we three with a hand cart crept quietly and secretly from the camp, for if we were discovered, we would not be allowed to go out to risk our lives on such an expedition. We were all highly elated to get from camp without being discovered and began our tramp back across the prairie in the direction we had come during the day. It was bright moonlight night beams reflections like the purest diamonds. The wind was blowing bitter cold, it was freezing hard and the snow was about eighteen inches deep, No one can realize the intense cold of the night like this, unless they have spent one in a similar place in midwinter.



We were all thinly clad and armed with all the implements of destruction that we could get together, a small rifle of about twenty-two caliber with one load, and old case knife with both sides broken off and only the piece of iron in the center, a small shingling hatchet with a handle seven inches long and one corner broken off. These were our implements. They had all seen better days, but we were glad to get them.



We traveled on hunting for the ox until we were five miles from camp out on the cold bleak prairie, when we came upon the ox standing, chilling and freezing to death. We stopped a few minutes to co[u]ncil, knowing that it was impossible to kill the ox where it now stood, the cold was so intense and distance to great to haul the meat. In coming out I had noticed a deep ravine or gulley a mile and a half from camp. I thought if we could get the ox there we would be a little sheltered from the wind and much nearer to haul the meat, so we concluded to drive the ox there.



By this time the woman was shivering and her teeth chattering with the cold, suddenly she gave up and was determined that she could go no further. She was pleading and begging to lay down. I told Mr. [James] Hunter that Mrs. Binder was dying and if she did we would be hung for murder, for it was realy no more or less than murder to bring a woman out on such a bitter cold night so thinly clothed. If we let her have her own way she would certainly die for the death sleep that precedes freezing was upon her. We did not like to leave the ox so we decided to place the woman in the shaves of the hand cart and let her lean against the brace that was there placing the breast against when pulling. Then I got in the shaves with the woman, placed one hand on the cart and with the other arm supporting her, making her walk in spite of her cries and entreaties, for we knew that was the only way of saving her life.



Mr. hunter took the hatchet and drove the ox, for the only way to make him move was by striking his back-bone with the hatchet and that sounded like striking a board. When I became tired in the shaves, Mr. Hunter would take my place and I took his, changing places at short intervals until at last we managed to reach the ravine, our gulley allured to. It being as we expected a little sheltered from the wind. The woman by this time was a little revivied by her walk and we set the hand cart up on end and placed her in it to protect her as much as possible from the cold. Then we make ready for the ox.



I was just immigrating from London and was not a very good marksman so I knew that I must take good aim, so I pointed my gun straight at the forehead of the ox and fired, but just as I fired the ox moved his head at the last load I had in the world went far from it’s mark. We were then in a dilemma for we did not like to leave our ox after all the trouble we had gone through. We decided to do our best to kill him with what we had so we tried to cut his throat.



The snow was so deep we could not find a rock to sharpen our case knofe [knife] but went to work. I held the ox by the horns while Hunter took hold of the loose skin of the throat in one hand and the knife in the other and began sawing on his throat. When Hunter got tired sawing we would change places. He holding the ox while I sawed awhile. The ox would stand still until his throat began to hurt, then he would run off and we had to catch him again and bring him back to repeat the operation, the knife was so dull that we could never tell where we sawed last. We continued this mode of butchering for nearly an hour without making any impression, so we gave up that scheme in despair.



We then decided to try the hatchet, but it had one corner broken off so we could not hurt him very much at a time with that. Hunter would hold him by the horns while I hit him with the hatchet on the head and at each blow the ox would break away and we had to catch him again. Then Hunter would think that he could strike harder than I, and he would try. Then I got out of patience with Hunter and told him he did not half hit him and Hunter told me to try myself if I thought I could do better, and so we kept changing places until he had a place in his head nearly the size of your hand where the hide was hacked up like mince meat. Hunter at last gave the final blow and the ox staggered and fell to the ground, taking me with him. I fell underneath his head and shoulders, hurting me terribly and pinning me to the ground so that I could not move, but I told Hunter to blaze away at him while he was down, for I was afraid that he would get up and run off again and we could only get one lick at him when he was on his feet. But he did not get up again for Hunter had killed him.



When we were sure that he was dead and I was liberated from underneath him, we made ready to skin him. Now if I could describe the skinning of that ox I would like to, but I cannot, but to give you some idea of what it was like, just take a piece of hoop iron and try to skin an ox with it, then you can realize what we passed through in skinning this one. We tried to saw through the hide, but not being experienced butchers, we could not get through the thick hair and hide. We tried to get a start at the eyes and then at the mouth thinking the skin would be thinner in those places, finally we got the ox on his back and tore through the skin, then we found out that it was much easier to saw on the edge of the hide after it was started.



At last we got the ox cut open and brought the woman to the side of it and she was glad to put her hands in the warm blood of the ox to keep them from freezing. By this little warmth the woman seemed to get so much better that we all felt happy. The knife and hatchet would freeze to our hands and we had to thaw them off in the warm blood and inter[v]als, but we thought we were doing a good job and would get something to eat. So we worked away until the ox was cut up and loaded on our hand-cart. Mr. Hunter did not like to leave the head, he thought that would make good soup, then he wanted the feet so we loaded them on but they proved to be too heavy and we all so weak that we could not pull the load, so we had to throw the head and feet away. We then started on our way back to comp when all at once Mr. Hunter gave out as the woman previously had done. He begged piteously for us to let him lie down and sleep, but I knew that he was freezing to death and the only hope of saving him was to make him walk, so we put him in between us, the woman on one side and I on the other and pulled the hand-cart and him as well, for he just let his legs drag and kept begging to let him sleep.



It was by very hard toil that we managed to get him and the beef to camp. When we arrived mr. Binder was waiting up for us. He was sitting by a few sagebrush coals with a tin cup and a bone in it stewing. When we reached the few smoldering coals, we let go of Hunter and he fell prostrate towards the fire, freezing and starving he seized the tin cup and immediately swallowed the contents. We managed to get him and his share of the beef in his tent just as it was breaking day.



We had been out the whole of that bitter night. Drinking that boiling soup make [made] mr Hunter so very sick that he was not able to help himself and could not hide his meat away and consequently when the people began moving around, they discovered the meat and notified the Captain, Edward Martin about it. I being bugler for the camp, the Captain sent for me and told me to call the people together which I did[.] Then the Captain told them he understood there was meat in camp and that poor meat was better than none and it must be divided among the people. I slipped away from the crowd and hid my meat and Mrs. Binder’s, wrapping it in clothes and hiding it in every available place.



When they questioned Mr. Hunter he was so sick that he could give no information where he obtained the meat. Hunter from that time on had to be hauled in a wagon to Salt Lake. After suffering many hardships and burying a great number of our company, we arrived in Salt Lake on the last day of November 1856. But with the best of nursing it took Mr. Hunter three months, after our arrival to recover from that night’s adventure on the Plains.



Years have passed since that night and Mrs. Binder and mr. Hunter have passed to the great beyond. I am getting on in years and children and grandchildren play around my door. But I have never for one single moment regretted what I have passed through or the cause for which I came. The Lord revealed to me what I had to pass through and I was prepared for what trials I had to bear, for they all transpired as I had foreseen in my vision.

Transcript for John Watkins pioneer history, 1-5

Josiah Rogerson, "Strong Men, Brave Women and Sturdy Children Crossed the Wilderness Afoot," Salt Lake Tribune

Josiah Rogerson, "Strong Men, Brave Women and Sturdy Children Crossed the Wilderness Afoot," Salt Lake Tribune, January 4, 1914.

Transcript for Josiah Rogerson, "Strong Men, Brave Women and Sturdy Children Crossed the Wilderness Afoot," Salt Lake Tribune, 4 January 1914

Josiah Rogerson, "Strong Men, Brave Women and Sturdy Children Crossed the Wilderness Afoot," Salt Lake Tribune.

Journal History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Journal History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, November 30, 1856.

Journal History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Perpetual Emigrating Fund, Financial Accounts 1849-1886, Ledger B

Perpetual Emigrating Fund, Financial Accounts 1849-1886, Ledger B, Page 258.

Perpetual Emigrating Fund, Financial Accounts 1849-1886, Ledger B.

William L. Spicer Binder biography and journal, undated, 8-19

William L. Spicer Binder biography and journal, undated, 8-19.

Transcript for William L. Spicer Binder biography and journal, undated, 8-19

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