• William Walker Rust participated in the Mormon Battalion. As a member of the Sick Detachments, he reached Utah in 1847 but soon returned to Winter Quarters. He then traveled with his family in 1850 with both the Snow and Roundy companies. As companies traveled so closely, it was not uncommon for families to move from one to another. Later, he again made a trip east and returned with the Charles Harper Company of 1855, in which he served as the Captain of the English Ten.

  His birth date is confirmed by Seventeenth Ward records at the time of a rebaptism on 14 March 1857.

Mormon Battalion Sick Detachments (1847)

• Age at Departure: 38

William Snow/Joseph Young Company (1850)

• Age at Departure: 41
• Head of Household

Shadrach Roundy Company (1850)

• Age at Departure: 41
• Head of Household

Charles A. Harper Company (1855)

• Age at Departure: 46

Sources

• 1850 Utah Census.
• 1870 Utah Census.
• 6th Company of 50 report, 1855, Brigham Young office emigrating companies reports, 1850-1862.
• Find a Grave (Website)
• Gardner Snow record and account book, 1847-1869, Record, 1850.
• "Immigration List," Deseret News, 12 September 1855, 214.
• John Steele journal, 24 May-30 July 1847, John Steele reminiscences and journals, 1846-1898.
• [List of those filing for lots, 1848], in Salt Lake County Recorder's Office, Land records [ca. 1847-1860].
• Luke W. Gallup reminiscences and diary, 1842 May-1891 March, 122-41.
• Matthew Rowan autobiography and journals, circa 1848-1863.
• Norma Baldwin Ricketts, The Mormon Battalion: U.S. Army of the West, 1846-1848 (Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 1996), 23.
• Norma Baldwin Ricketts, The Mormon Battalion: U.S. Army of the West, 1846-1848 (Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 1996), 244-45.
• Perpetual Emigrating Fund, Financial Accounts 1849-1886, Ledger A, p. 222.
• Seventeenth Ward, Record of members collection, 1836-1970.
• Thomas E. Jeremy collection, 1827-1931, Journal (volume 3), 1854 September-1858 April.