Devil's Gate

by David Roberts

  And Bond was able to confess to a shameful deed that he had perpetrated in the Red Buttes camp. After several days of waiting, the flour supply was so scanty that it would only “make a little thickning in poor ox soup.” One day the bugler called the company to a prayer meeting.

  I had been to many of the prayer meetings previous, but as I had seen Sister Scott cooking a nice pot of dumplings just before the bugle sounded for prayers, she hid the dumplings nicely under the wagon and covered them up ready to eat on her return from the meeting and she being a very zelous woman went to the prayer meeting and I did not go with her this time and as I had been watching her cook the dumplings, I went to look for the same and found them, and being so hungry I could not res[is]t the temptation so I sat down and ate them all and duly admit that those dumplings did me more good than all the prayer that could have been offered, and for such an act, I have done a grevious wrong for which I regret going and ask God to forgive me in time of hunger. In time the old lady returned from the meeting and went to look for her dumplings, but to her surprise they were all gone, so she inquired of all to see if she could find out who had taken them, but was fruitless in fing[er]ing the one.

  Patience Loader later wrote vividly about the trials of the Red Buttes camp. She remembered that she and her sister had to walk nearly a mile through knee-deep snow to find firewood, and then all she could get was “green ceder,” i.e., juniper. The single repast that stuck in her memory was broth made by boiling “an old beef head”: Patience

  chopt it in peices the best I could put it into the pot with some Snow and boiled for along time about four o clock in the after noon we was able to have some of this fine Made broath I cannot say that it tasted very good but it was flavord boath with Sage brush and from the smokey fire from the green ceder fire so after it was cooked we all enjoyed it and fealt very thankfull to have that much it would have tasted better if we could have alittle pepper and salt but that was aluxury we had been deprived of for along time.

  Patience lavishes considerable detail upon the decline of a Saint she calls John Laurey—since “he had no friends with him he was alone,” her family invited him into their tent. No Saint by that name is listed in the LDS Archives roster of the Martin Company, but scholar Lyndia Carter believes the unfortunate loner may have been a fifty-five-year-old man from London named George Lawley. Patience’s family offered the man some of the beef-head broth: “We tryed to give him alittle with a teaspoon but we could not get the spoon between his teeth poor dear Man he looked at us but could not Speak aword he was nearly dead frozen.”

  That night,

  We rapt him up the best we could to try to get warm but he was two far gone we all laid down to try to get warm in our quilts the best we could My Mother and Myself and sister Jane in one bed My sister Tamar Maria sarah and my little brother Robert in the other bed and poor brother Laurey in his own bed poor Man hehad only one old blanket to rap him in we had a buflow roab this he had over him after we was in bed it was a dark loansome night he commenced to talk to himself he called for his wife and children he had previously told me that he had a wife and nine children in London and that they would come out as soon as he could make money enough to send for them.

  It was indeed too late for Brother Laurey (or Lawley). As Patience amplifies,

  In the night we could not hear him talking any more I said to Mother I think poor brother is dead I have not heard him for the last hour Mother ask me to get up and go to him I got up but everything in the tent seemed so silent and then was such a sadd feeling came over me it was so dark and drear that I said to Mother I cannot go to him She sais well get back in bed and try to get warm and wait untill daylight of course we did not Sleep early as it was alittle light I got up and went to the poor man found him dead frozen to the tent as I turned him over to look in his face never can I forget that Sight poor Man.

  Wrapped in his single thin blanket, “Laurey” was buried that morning, according to Patience, in the mass grave with the eighteen others who had died during the night.

  With the weather failing to moderate and their provisions almost gone, it is likely that the Martin Company would have been unable to start along the trail again without the timely intercession of the three-man scouting express sent out from Devil’s Gate. Once more, a blessed event was presaged by prophetic dreams. Elizabeth Jackson, who had lain through the endless night beside the dead body of her husband, Aaron, a few days before, later claimed, “When I retired to bed that night, being the 27th of October, I had a stunning revelation. In my dream, my husband stood by me, and said, ‘Cheer up, Elizabeth, deliverance is at hand.’”

  Josiah Rogerson reported the prophetic vision of John Rodwell that same night: “He said: ‘I dreamed that it was Tuesday or Wednesday, and about noontide, as near as I could judge. I saw a mule, packed with blankets and cooking utensils, come right in the middle of our camp, as we are now, followed by three Californians, wear[ing] blue soldier overcoats, riding mules or horses. They stopped and told us of teams and relief from the valley, after which we started again on our journey.’”

  The best account of the Martin Company’s deliverance on October 28 appears in the memoir of John Bond, the twelve-year-old in the Hodgetts party. “In the after part of the day,” Bond remembered many years later, “I was playing in front of Sister Scott’s wagon with her son Joseph, then seven years old and his mother was looking to the westward.” It was Sister Scott whose dumplings the young lad had stolen and eaten.

  All at once Sister Scott sprang to her feet in the wagon and screamed out at the top of her voice. I see them coming! I see them coming! Surely they are angels from heaven. At such being said, I looked the way she was looking, but could not see or perceive what she was looking at in the distance…. By this time, more of the Brethern and Sisters came from their tents and wagons, from over the camp anxious to observe what she saw in the distance.

  All kept looking westward for the moving objects, when all commenced to see in the far distance at the curve of the hill what Sister Scott saw, and it was three men on horses driving another slowly in the deep crusted snow, and the wolves were howling in all directions…. [A] general cry rent the air. Hurrah! hurrah! Some of the voices choking with laughter and of tears down care worn cheeks…. When Sister Scott waved her shawl, “We are saved!” so loud that all in camp could hear her and still repeating, “It is! It is surely the relief party from Utah.”

  Joseph A. Young, Daniel W. Jones and Abraham Garr came into camp with a small dun colored mule packed with supplies when much rejoicing insued through camp with Hurrahs! Hurrahs! again and again as the broken hearted mothers ran clasping their emaciated arms around the necks of the relief party, kissing them time and time again and as do rush up in groups to welcome the brethern, fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters fall on each others necks the tears falling from their eyes in profusion.

  Also many years later, Albert Jones’s recall of the joyous rendezvous was fresh:

  I well remember the scene of then, Joseph A. Young & companion reached us, as the first noble band of rescuers from the vallies—Jos. A. rode a white mule down a snow covered hill or a dugway into our camp the white mule was lost sight of, on the white background of snow—and Jos. A. with his big blue soldiers overcoat, its large cape & capacious skirts rising & falling with the motion of the mule, gave the appearance of a big blue winged angel flying to our rescue.

  The scene that presented itself on his arrival, I shall never forget; women crying aloud; on their knees, holding to the skirts of his overcoat as though afraid he would escape from their grasp & fly away.

  Patience Loader remembered that the rescuers were as deeply moved as the rescued, as “with tears streaming down his face,” Joseph Young asked her where Captain Martin’s tent was. Locating the captain, Young asked him how many had died. Martin reported that fifty-six members of the company had perished since the Saints had left Florence nine weeks before.

  Young then ordere
d the immediate disbursement of a pound of flour per adult from what must have been the last remnants of the company’s supply, and the slaughter of all the remaining cattle, lean and unnutritious though they might be. And he “told the people to gather ‘up’ and move on at once as the only salvation was to travel a little every day.” The Saints agreed to start the next morning.

  From Martin, Young learned that the Hunt wagon company was marooned a good fifteen miles farther east, somewhere near the banks of the Platte. After tending to the Martin and Hodgetts Companies, the three express scouts rode on, once more at “full gallop,” to locate the last of all the emigrant caravans. That same afternoon, the trio rode in sight of the Hunt Company camp. Daniel Jones’s account of the meeting is strange in the extreme, giving perhaps a glimpse into the all-encompassing apathy that can descend on people as they approach death by starvation:

  On arriving no one noticed us or appeared to care who we were. Their tents were pitched in good shape, wood was plentiful, and no one seemed concerned. Joseph A. Young became offended, not expecting such a cool reception and remarked, “Well it appears we are not needed here.” So we went down into the bottom and made camp for ourselves. After a while some one sauntered down our way, thinking probably we were mountaineers [i.e., non-Mormon mountain men heading east along the trail]. These recognized Brother Young and made a rush for camp, giving the word; soon we were literally carried in and a special tent was pitched for our use. Everything was done to make “amends” for the previous neglect.

  The official journal of the Hunt Company is at odds with Jones’s memory of a “cool reception,” recording simply, “Bro. Joseph Young and two others arrived this evening, which caused generally rejoicing throughout the camp.”

  On the morning of the 29th, Daniel Jones and Abel Garr tried to rally the Hunt Company Saints to get them moving, while Joseph Young (for some reason that Jones’s memoir does not explain) pushed on even farther east, to the bridge over the Platte for which the Martin Company had been too poor to pay the toll. Once more, Jones deplored “the spirit of apathy among the people.” Instead of gathering up their cattle at once, they began to quarrel among themselves over who should take on that unpleasant chore. “This made us feel like leaving them to take care of themselves,” reported Jones. “We saddled up to do so.”

  Meanwhile, an ominous storm was gathering in the west. Thick clouds amassed, with only a narrow hole of blue sky ahead. Abel Garr called the dilatory emigrants’ bluff.

  We mounted our mules; Brother Garr, pointing to the bright spot in the heavens, said, “Do you see that hole? You had better all get out of here before that closes up, for it is your opening to the valley. We are going.” The people, I believe, took this for a warning and soon started for their cattle.

  By the time Jones and Garr had regained the Red Buttes camp, they found that the Martin Company had vacated it, while the Hodgetts wagon company was just starting out. Riding on, the two scouts overtook the caravan of handcarts. As Jones later recaptured the scene,

  The train was strung out for three or four miles. There were old men pulling and tugging their carts, sometimes loaded with a sick wife or children—women pulling along sick husbands—little children six to eight years old struggling through the mud and snow. As night came on the mud would freeze on their clothes and feet. There were two of us and hundreds needing help. What could we do?

  What the scouts, with Joseph Young having caught them up, did do was to ride on as fast as they could to bring the news to George Grant’s stationary rescue party at Devil’s Gate. The morning after their return, Grant’s whole team set off eastward again. The rescuers met the hand-carts at Greasewood Creek, sixteen miles east of Devil’s Gate.

  In a letter to Brigham Young written on November 2 from Devil’s Gate, Grant vividly evoked that meeting:

  We dealt out to br. Martin’s company the clothing, &c., that we had for them; and next morning, after stowing our wagons full of the sick, the children and the infirm, with a good amount of luggage, started homeward about noon. The snow began to fall very fast, and continued until late at night. It is now about 8 inches deep here, and the weather is very cold.

  It is not of much use for me to attempt to give a description of the situation of these people, for this you will learn from your son Joseph A. and br. Garr, who are the bearers of this express; but you can imagine between five and six hundred men, women and children, worn down by drawing hand carts through snow and mud; fainting by the way side; falling, chilled by the cold; children crying, their limbs stiffened by cold, their feet bleeding and some of them bare to snow and frost. The sight is almost too much for the stoutest of us; but we go on doing all we can, not doubting nor despairing.

  GRANT AT ONCE realized the impossibility of solving the crisis. Several of the participants put the number of nearly starving Saints in the three companies at 1,200, though nine hundred is probably a more accurate count. Grant’s twenty-odd men with their ten wagonloads of flour could make only a tiny and temporary improvement in the emigrants’ ordeal. As Grant wrote to Young, “Our company is too small to help much, it is only a drop to a bucket, as it were, in comparison to what is needed. I think that not over one-third of br. Martin’s company is able to walk.”

  Nonetheless, for several days he boosted the daily ration to a pound of flour per adult. Even so, a few Saints died between Greasewood Creek and Devil’s Gate, including six-year-old Herbert Griffiths, whose twelve-year-old brother, John, had died at Red Buttes. Their father, John Griffiths, reached camp one night during that painful march only by crawling on his hands and knees through the snow.

  The Martin Company reached Devil’s Gate on November 2, although the Hunt wagon company did not come in until November 5. The half-ruined stockade and cabins of Fort Seminoe could hardly give refuge to nine hundred Saints. Daniel Jones recalled that “All the people who could, crowded into the houses of the fort out of the cold and the s[t]orm. One crowd cut away the walls of the house they were in for fuel, until half of the roof fell in; fortunately they were all on the protected side and no one was hurt.”

  Patience Loader, however, remembered that emergency campfire differently. On arriving at Devil’s Gate,

  We found several big fiars there was several log huts standing there and Several breathren from the valley was camping there…. We was all so hungery and cold many ran to get to the fiar to warm but the breathren ask for all to be as patint as possable and that we should have Some wood to make us afiar so we could get warm brother George Grant was there he told us all to Stand back for he was going to Knock down one of those log hutts to make fiars for us for he sais you are not going to freeze to night.

  Boasting that he had the strength of a giant, Grant

  raised his axe and with one blow he Knocked in the whole front of the building took each log and Split in four peices gave each family one peice oh such crowding for wood Some would have taken more than one piece but Bro grant told them to hold on and not to be greedy there was some that had not got any yet he Said there is one sister standing back waiting very patintly and She must have some I called out Yes brother grant My Name is Pati[e]nce and I have waited with patience he laugh and said give that sister some wood and let her go and make afiar I was very thankfull to get wood I had waited So long that my clothing stiff and my old stockings and shoes seemed frozen on my feet and legs.

  That evening, however, the Saints were ordered out of the stockade, to pitch their tents on the ground surrounding it. This proved a herculean task. John Jaques recaptured the ordeal twenty-two years later:

  There was a foot or eighteen inches of snow on the ground which, as there were but one or two spades in camp, the emigrants had to shovel with their frying pans, or tin plates, or anything they could use for that purpose, before they could pitch their tents, and then the ground was frozen so hard that it was almost impossible to drive the tent pegs into it. Some of the men were so weak that it took them an hour or two to clear the p
laces for their tents and set them up. They would shovel and scrape away at the hard snow a few minutes and then rest, then shovel and scrape and rest again, and so on.

  The next day, as another storm descended upon the pioneers, Captain Grant called a council meeting. Among the options he considered was having the whole nine-hundred-person throng halt at Devil’s Gate and try to winter over. Common sense prevailed, however, as Grant realized that that effort would amount to a recipe for mass death. Meanwhile, Grant was vexed that none of the rescue teams that he knew had left Salt Lake shortly after his own had yet arrived.

  One decision Grant made during the council was to send Joseph Young and Abel Garr back to Salt Lake City, riding as fast as they could, and carrying Grant’s letter to Young. The two indefatigable scouts set off that very day. Among the benefits their mission might perform would be to intercept other rescue wagons and urge them forward at top speed. Young and Garr covered the 327 miles in the extraordinary time of ten days.

  Although Grant’s letter to the Prophet reported the desperate plight of the last three companies, and even though that letter was published in the Deseret News on November 19, in the same issue the official newspaper of the colony also published a short report from the scouts that defies credibility: