Sarah Zurviah Southworth (1835 - 1927) Profile

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Sarah Zurviah Southworth

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Burbank, Sarah Southworth, Autobiographical sketch, 1924

Burbank, Sarah Southworth, Autobiographical sketch, 1924.

In June we camped in a place called Winter Quarters where the company was organized in companies of fity with a captain over each. D.M. Burbank was our captain. Then we went on our journey among the Indians. At night we had to guard the oxen so they would not steal them. We chained the cattle to the wheels of the wagons. The bugle was sounded in the morning and all the camp called together for prayers. The cows were yoked with oxen and traveled many miles before getting water and wood. On the first part of the journey when we came to streams of water we found willows to make bridges so that they could take the wagons over.



When we came to a stream we would wash our clothes and dry them on the grass for we might not get a place again for fity or one hundred miles. We gathered dried dung or buffalo chips to make a fire to cook our food, dug a hole in the ground, put the skillet in the hole with a tight lid on it, put the buffalo chip on the lid and set it afire. It baked the bread fine. That was the way we did our cooking until we got where there was wood again.



Then we went along the Platte River where we had the cholera. Five died with it in our company. My youngest sister was born on the planes. My oldest sister gave birth to a baby on the planes and many other women gave birth to babies but the company was not hindered in their march as they would move on the next morning making quite a hardship for the women. My husband’s wife Abby [Abigail] died with cholera and buried without a coffin by the Platte River along with others. We had to go on in the morning never to see their graves again. The night that Abby was buried the wolves were howling. It was awful to hear the dirt thrown on their bodies. A young lady and I were the only ones to wash and dress her with what we could find, her under clothes and night gown. We sewed her up in a sheet and quilt. That was all that could be done for her burial. All the women in the camp were afraid to prepare the body for burial for fear that they would catch the Cholera from her. This young girl and I were not afraid to take care of the body. We were only sixteen years old but brave in that case.



We started in June and were four months on our journey before we arrived at the Salt Lake Valley. Three months after Abby died I married D.M. Burbank on the Plains. Captain Walker of another company that camped by us married us one evening. The bugle called the camp together to witness our marriage. We had cedar torch lights instead of candles. It was by Green River in September. There I mothered four children that were sick with scarlet fever. My husband and I had great trouble with sickness the rest of the way. We also had a number of oxen die and had to stop for the camp to get cows instead of oxen. A hundred Indians took D.M. Burbank a prisoner. We thought he would be killed but the Chief gave him up to us if we would give them flour sugar and coffee. We rejoiced when we saw the Captain alive. He had gone to hunt a buffalo that he spied through a spy glass. He had killed buffaloes before when hunting for a camping place. The poor cows furnished us with milk or we would have suffered for a drink as the water was so bad for hundreds of miles. We had to grind parched corn in a coffee mill to eat in milk to save our flour. We would eat it at night in milk. We parched a sack full before we left home. I stood over a fire place and helped mother do it. The oxen stampeded and ran away with the wagons toward the river. One woman was killed. I jumped out of the wagon with mother’s babe and came nearly being killed. It rained so hard that night that everything was wet through. The wind blew so hard that we had to sit up and hold the covers on all night. That happened many times.



When fording streams we could just see the oxens backs and horns and thought our wagons would go under, but we got out alive by the help of the Lord.

Transcript for Burbank, Sarah Southworth, Autobiographical sketch, 1924

History of Utah's Tooele County: from the edge of the Great Basin frontier

Daughters of Utah Pioneers. History of Utah's Tooele County: From the Edge of the Great Basin Frontier (Tooele, UT: Transcript Bulletin Publishing, Inc., 2012.

Tooele County Daughters of Utah Pioneers. History of Utah's Tooele County: from the edge of the Great Basin frontier.

"Society," Box Elder News

"Society," Box Elder News, March 28, 1916.

"Society," Box Elder News.

Southworth, Chester, [Autobiography], in B. Glen Marble, comp., Mormon Marbles: Roots and Branches [1979], 87-88

Southworth, Chester, [Autobiography], in B. Glen Marble, comp., Mormon Marbles: Roots and Branches [1979], 87-88.

About 200 left Kanesville, 5 July 1852, mostly members of the McOlney Branch in Pottawattomie, Iowa. The McOlney Branch was located about one and a half to three miles north to Kanesville at a place called Bluff city. The company was supposed to number 250 families each. This company was called the 14 company or the John B. Walker Company.
Myself and wife [Mary Byington Southworth] and four children were assigned to Captain Daniel Mark Burbank. My four children were: Chester, Joseph, Laura and Sarah. In this Walker company was another Southworth, Cragun and wife. The three Capts. as I remember, John Myers who settled in Panguitch, Utah, Davis McOlney who settled in Lehi. The other two I have forgotten. All were men with families. The organization was completed the 25th of June 1852. 
We crossed the Missouri river the 30th of June 1852 but did not all get together until the evening of July 3rd/ 1852 and spent the 4th of July celebrating our National Holiday. We were a company of devoted Christians, having prayer morning and evening, putting our trust in the Lord each day and thanking him at the close of the day for our day of safe travel.
Elkhorn river is where the actual treck began. We crossed the Elkhorn river by rafts pulled by oxen, some of the horses swam across. Beginning at North Platte we established camping proceedures. The mules and horses were tied inside the wagon circle at night. No one was to leave the camp without permission. The indians set pra[i]rie fires all around us, they were so close our faces and clothing were black from the flying ash.
Register Cliff was a resting place with good water and good grass. Farson is where we crossed the little Sandy.
Fort Bridger, an army post. Here the Pioneers spent a day repairing wagon wheels and making general preparations for continuing the treck. Here we caught mountain trout, enjoying the opportunity to clean up and rest.
Our oldest daughter Susannah, who had married John Palmer at Oregon, Holt Missouri, had a daughter born 22 Sep 1852 at Black Fork in the Sweet water, Wyoming.
Sarah our second daughter married Captain Daniel Burbank as he had lost his wife near Sweet Water Nebraska along the Platte river. We were unfortunate enough to have cholera break out among our members, we lost 13 with cholera. Sarah was just a young girl but was unafraid to render help. She prepared the boy as best she could. Abigail Burbank died 20th July 1852 and was buried not far from the trail. Sarah and Daniel Mark Burbank were married by Capt. John. B. Walker the 10th of September 1852. Capt. Burbank had three children, one boy and two girls.
The John B. Walker Company entered Salt Lake Valley the 5th of October 1852.

Transcript for Southworth, Chester, [Autobiography], in B. Glen Marble, comp., Mormon Marbles: Roots and Branches [1979], 87-88

Sarah Zurviah Southworth

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