Emma Cotter (1824 - 1870) Profile

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Emma Cotter

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Blair, Alice Rose Tucker, Biography of Emma Cotter and Samuel Starkey Tucker [ca. 1930], 3-4

Blair, Alice Rose Tucker, Biography of Emma Cotter and Samuel Starkey Tucker [ca. 1930], 3-4.

My parents left home, friends, country. and all for the sake of the Gospel & journeyed to zion, bringing with them my mother’s father Adam [Cotter] & four little girls. They 
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 burried three of their children, two girls <3 and 5 years> & one boy two years, who was scalded to death.
As near as I can find out, we sailed from Liverpool England on the ship, "Hudson" (a sailing Vessel) in the month of May 1864 and were six weeks on the water. We were three months making the trip to Salt Lake City
We traveled with ox teams and were in Captain Warren Snow's Company, with about fifty teams or wagons in the company.
My father often told me when a child that he came near burrying me at sea as I was very ill.
He made the coffins to burry those who died crossing the plains. After leaving one town he walked back through the river water to his waiste &amp; bought a board to make my coffin &amp; waded back with it &amp; put it under the wagon to keep it in safety till needed.
My mother was very ill all the way crossing the plains. She had gathered breasts &amp; my father &amp; her father walked on in front of the wagon &amp; picked up stones that would have jared her had the wheels struck them.
My two sisters eight and ten years Fanny and Belle walked all the way to Salt Lake.
They remember my father diging two feet of snow away before he could pitch his tent.

Transcript for Blair, Alice Rose Tucker, Biography of Emma Cotter and Samuel Starkey Tucker [ca. 1930], 3-4

Blair, Alice Rose Tucker, [Interview], in "Utah Pioneer Biographies," 44 vols., 5:87-88

Blair, Alice Rose Tucker, [Interview], in "Utah Pioneer Biographies," 44 vols., 5:87-88.

At Laramie, Wyoming, which was as far as the railroad went at that time, we were taken in covered wagons drawn by ox teams. Captain Warren S. Snow was the captain of the immigrants crossing the plains. Mother [Emma Cotter Tucker] was so very sick and suffered greatly with a gathered breast and her father [Adam Cotter] and my two sisters [Fanny Amelia and Isabel Martin Tucker] walked in advance of the wagon to pick up all the stones or any large stick that might jar the wagon and cause her any unnecessary pain. They would throw them to the side of the road. I was also still very sick, and they worried about me and thought sure they would have to bury me on the plains. Father [Samuel Starkey Tucker] had been a carpenter and joiner in England, having been bound out as an apprentice at the age of nine and working seven years to learn the trade. He also was a coachmaker and stairbuilder and when anyone died crossing the plains, it was his job to make the coffins to bury them in. He said he was so sure that I was going to die that he even waded back through a river with water clear up to his waist to get to a town and buy a board with which to make my coffin. He put the board under the wagon to keep it until he needed it and it was still there when they reached Salt Lake City, on November 2nd.	
My sisters told me they remembered there was snow when they reached Salt Lake City and father had to shovel it away before he could pitch our tent.

Transcript for Blair, Alice Rose Tucker, [Interview], in "Utah Pioneer Biographies," 44 vols., 5:87-88

Emma Cotter

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