Heritage Gateways

William Clayton Journals

July 14, 1847

Location: Weber River Ford - 41 miles left, Utah - (4 rods wide, 2 feet deep. Good to ford. Plenty of grass and timber.) [Close by are the "Witches" rock formations, Echo Canyon, and at one time at the mouth of the canyon, "Pulpit Rock."] - 990 miles from Winter Quarters.

Summary: Brethren Young is recovered; a team is chosen to create a road to the Weber River Canyon and to check out if it's passable.

Journal entry:WEDNESDAY, 14TH. The day has been very hot, with occasionally a light breeze. Several of the brethren have been out hunting, and brought in several antelope which appear to abound in this region.

Brothers Woodruff and Barnabas Adams went back to the other wagons this morning. They returned at night and reported that President Young is considerably better, but Brother Rockwood remains very sick. There are one or two new cases of sickness in our camp, mostly with fever which is very severe on the first attack, generally rendering its victims delirious for some hours, and then leaving them in a languid, weakly condition. It appears that a good dose of pills or medicine is good to break the fever. The patient then needs some kind of stimulant to brace his nerves and guard him against another attack. I am satisfied that diluted spirits is good in this disease after breaking up the fever. At night had a light shower.

The following is a list of the names of those who are gone on to look out and make a road, etc., viz.: Orson Pratt, commander of company, O. P. Rockwell, Jackson Redding. Stephen Markham, Nathaniel Fairbanks, Joseph Egbert, John S. Freeman, Marcus B. Thorpe, Robert Crow, Benjamin B. Crow, John Crow, Walter H. Crow, Walter Crow, George W. Therikill, James Chesney, Jewis B. Myers, John Brown, Shadrack Roundy, Hans C. Hanson, Levi Jackman, Lyman Curtis, David Powell, Oscar Crosby, Hark Lay, Joseph Mathews, Gilbert Summe, Green Flake, John S. Gleason, Charles Burke, Norman Taylor, A. P. Chesley, Seth Taft, Horace Thornton, Stephen Kelsey, James Stewart, Robert Thomas, C. D. Barnham, John S. Eldridge, Elijah Newamn, Francis Boggs, Levi N. Kendall, David Grant. First division : seven wagons, fifteen men; second division : sixteen wagons, twenty - seven men besides Crow's family of women and children. Total, twenty - three wagons and forty - two men.

Source: William Clayton's Journal

Published by the Clayton Family Association, and edited by Lawrence Clayton. To the best of our research, this contents of this book are no longer under copyright.