Peter Aker Van Valkenburg
We know that Peter and his family arrived in Utah in 1849 or 1850. He had a child born in Iowa in September 1848, and another born in Utah in 1850. He also married his second wife, Caroline Freeman Cutler, in Salt Lake City on 17 October 1850. His family also appears on the 1850 Utah census. Further research is needed to determine the year the family came to Utah and the name of the company with which they traveled.
His name appears on the roster of the 1862 Brunson pioneer company as "Peter Van Valkenberg and family." Regarding his family's trip back to Utah in 1862, the following note is with the record of his wife Eliza Ann:
She initially traveled to the Valley in 1848 with her husband, Jesse Turpin, and their children. At some point, they all returned to the East. They were at Fort Leavenworth, preparing to travel back home to Utah when Jesse died of cholera. Eliza Ann and the children must have made the journey in 1854 or 1855 because Eliza remarried in Salt Lake City in February 1856. Again, the family made a trip to the East, this time with her second husband, Peter Van Valkenburg and family, returning in 1862.
He traveled again in 1866, possibly as a teamster. He appears in the Dowdle journal as "Vanvolten Birg" but PEF records for that year confirm his identity.
