The Mormon pioneer migration was an immense undertaking, requiring careful oversight by the leaders of the Church.
John D. Lee filed this inventory report of Captains of 10 at Pleasant Point, Iowa, April 1846. See the entries for Amasa Lyman, Sidney Tanner, and Nathan Tanner.
The Tanners had substantial resources compared to some of the other early Mormon pioneers; an earlier page in this collection recorded dryly, "N. W. Whipple has not the first thing but his wife." (Remember that every resource the Tanners had as they started across the plains was due to very hard and skilled farm work.)
Sydney [sic] Tanner...10 in family, 4 beds, 3 cows, 1680 lbs of flour, 126 lbs of meal, 106 lbs of beans, 210 lbs of wheat, 120 lbs of shorts, 3 wagons, 2 horses, 8 oxen, 7 [boxes of doughnuts]*
Church History Library, MS 14290, Box 1, Folder 8, Inventory reports, 1846 April.
* Just kidding. [Indecipherable.]
* Just kidding. [Indecipherable.]
Reading old copies of the DesNews and see this sad follow-up to this post, June 25, 1856:
ReplyDelete"Died: In this city, June 6, 1856, of consumption, SUSAN JANE, wife of Nelson W. Whipple, aged 28 years and 2 months.
She...died in full faith, leaving 5 children under 9 years of age."
It sounds like the Whipples had a harder-than-normal time.