Heritage Gateways

Pioneer 1848-1868 Companies

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Hannah Hood Hill (Romney), 1849 (age 7)

Near the city of Toronto, Canada on July 9, 1842 a daughter was born to Archibald N. and Isabelle Hood Hill. She was given the name of Hannah. Parley P. Pratt brought the message of the gospel to the Hill home and in September, 1842 they left Canada, arriving in Nauvoo on the 30th. Here the family lived until 1846 when they, with other Saints, were forced to leave their beautiful home. Through extreme exposure, Isabelle died in Winter Quarters March 12, 1847, leaving three small children. When, in the same year, Archibald decided to join the Saints in Salt Lake Valley, he left Samuel with his parents, Hannah and Rebecca with his sisters.

After arriving in Utah, Mr. Hill worked for Newel K. Whitney for eighteen months, during which time he built a house and in 1849 his sister Mary arrived with his two little daughters. Later his father and mother came, bringing his son Samuel.

From the autobiography of Hannah Hood Hill Romney, written during her later years:

When I was nine months old my parents moved to Nauvoo. I well remember the house we lived in. It was a rock house with two rooms above and a basement below. My grandparents lived with us. Father worked on the temple. He took me to the temple one day to meeting. I heard the Prophet Joseph Smith preach but was too young to remember what he said. I can remember how he looked. After meeting, father took me up on top of the temple and I saw the Mississippi River. It looked like an ocean to me then as I had never seen such a great body of water. We lived in Nauvoo until the prophet Joseph and Hyrum were killed. We were driven out with the rest of the Saints to wander in the wilderness. We wintered in Winter Quarters. My father built a log house. We could afford one room only, a fire place in one side, a window without glass, a door in the end with a quilt hung up for a door.

I haven't many pleasant remembrances of my childhood days, for while in Winter Quarters my mother took sick and died, owing to exposure and hardships. This was my first great sorrow. Father left his children; my brother Samuel with his father and mother, my sister Rebecca with one sister, and I with another, and he started with the pioneers to find a home in the west. My aunt moved to a place called Honey Creek, a short distance from Winter Quarters, where my uncle built a log cabin and also cleared some land to plant a crop. While there I remember getting lost in the woods. I started out with my uncle's dinner, saw a little squirrel and thought I could catch him. It led me a chase and I couldn't find my way. I started to cry and called for my uncle. He happened to hear me so told me to stand still, but I was very badly frightened. I didn't get the squirrel. My brother and two cousins and I used to have nice times together, gathering flowers and different kinds of berries and nuts. One day I was sent to the spring for water a mile away from where we lived. When I got there I saw a snake sunning itself by the spring. I would not go near it to get the water so had to wait until it left. Snakes were very plentiful in that part of the country. We lived there about two years, then my father sent for me to come to Salt Lake Valley, in the year 1849. I was very excited and thought we were going on a pleasure trip, but found it was a very long, hard one before we got to the end of our journey. The first night I started out with strangers; they cut off all my hair. I traveled bare-footed and bare-headed; sometimes we would travel two or three days without water. My father met us in Emigration Canyon with vegetables and melons which we enjoyed very much. When we arrived in the valley my father had built a home in the Eighth Ward, where I lived with another aunt, father's oldest sister. When I was eight years old I was baptized by Bishop Everett. My father then bought a home in the 14th Ward and I went to the first Sunday School that was organized in Salt Lake City. Brother Ballantyne was the Superintendent.

Source: Our Pioneer Heritage © Carter, Kate B., ed. 20 vols. Salt Lake City: International Society, Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1958-1977. All rights reserved. No part of this material may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher. Documents and images are exerpted by permission from the LDS Family History Suite CDROM from Ancestry.