Great Emigration to Utah 1861

John W Sharp and Ann Maria Bailey Sharp
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Ann Maria Easter Bailey Sharp Evans
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 Ann Evans Sainsbury 
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Mary Sainsbury Visser 
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Steven Mathew Visser 
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Me

John W Sharp(B) and Ann Maria Bailey Sharp (B April 1, 1829) When they left England in 1861 Maria was 27 John was 25. After eight days at sea, Maria became sea sick. By the time they arrived in New York on May 22nd, Maria was very sick. (She was also just starting out a pregnancy.) A sister Mencech advised John to purchase some medicine at the drug store. He did, and after taking it, Maria improved a little, but was still sick. They traveled to Chicago by train. Traveling by train brought its own kind of hardship. Pioneers faced problems like over crowding-sometimes there were 84 people to each railroad car, poor sanitary facilities, bad ventilation, uncomfortable sleeping arrangements, lack of drinking water, and an abundance of soot, cinders, smoke, lice and dirt.

When they reached Chicago, John left to spend his last dollar on some more medicine. While he was gone, a young man by the name or Simmons came to see if any of the immigrants were people he knew from England. He recognized Maria, for he had served as a traveling elder in her home town. They reminisced together, and when John returned, he was introduced to Elder Simmons. The call came for them to board the train, and they bid the young man good-bye. They were pushing their way through the crowd when Elder Simmons appeared again. "Well, I suppose you are off now," he said, and he shook Mariah's hand and then John's hand and wishing him God's speed, left him a two and a half dollar gold piece. This was all the money they had to last them until they arrived in Salt Lake City.

John and Maria boarded the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad. (CB&Q) This rail journey to Quincy was 288 miles long and lasted about fifteen hours. One Mormon traveler who made the same journey in 1862 reported: "arrived at Chicago, a fine place. Left there about twelve noon. A fine view of the lake, very many vessels in the sight. Illinois appears to one a flat, fertile country. Hundreds of cattle grazing on the prairies. stopped at a village and cleaned them out of bread."

At Quincy, the Sharps boarded a steamer ship and went sixteen miles downstream on the Mississipi River to Hannibal, and from there they went by train to Saint Joseph. This was 207 mile road trip across Missouri. One unhappy passenger dubbed the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad as the "Horrible and Slow-jogging Railroad." Once they reached St. Joseph, immigrants took river boats up the Missouri river some 160 miles to the area of Council Bluffs and Florence, Nebraska.

John and Maria Sharp became part of the great "Florence Fit out of 1861" Since the days of the Nauvoo exodus, Church leaders had labored to fulfill a promise that "We would not cease our operations until we gathered the poor Saints." In 1860 Brigham Young proposed a new plan to help get Saints to Zion. Various Utah ward of the church would provide wagons and teams for tithing credit. These wagons would be filled with bags of flour. Teamsters from Salt Lake would drive these wagons to Florence, stock piling the bags of the flour at specific points. The wagons would pick up the poor immigrants and bring them back to Salt Lake City. The flour (which was too expensive to buy in Florence) would provide food for the journey west. The immigrants would be charged a small fee, but it would be on credit. Brigham Young wanted each wagon to hold the bedding, groceries, meat, clothing and other requite articles for eight to ten persons. The pioneers, themselves, would have to walk.

 On the evening of June 3, the 629 Saints from the ship Underwriter arrived in Florence. John and Maria Sharp were part of this group. William Blake, one of the new arrivals recorded in his journal that "A host were on shore prepared to greet old friends. Darkness came on quickly, so most luggage was left on the ground and guarded. Wagons conveyed the new arrivals to tents or to hotels, at least such they were called." Before sunrise, Blake began to sort baggage, when rains struck "Some newcomers stood under umbrells, some rushed to tents, and others pick through luggage piles unprotected."

In John's own words: "Mean while, we had to live in old lumber shanties and dugouts. We had to crowd in as best we could and at night spread our beds of blankets and quilts on the floor and we lay there like sardines in a can"

When they had been in Florence for about three weeks, John contracted with two Salt Lake merchants, Daniel Clift and Thomas Hawkins, to drive a team of ten oxen across the plains for them. He also helped them herd their cattle while they were getting ready for their trek westward. One of the men who was helping with the cattle fell asleep on duty and Hawkins and Sharp decided to wake him up. They drove the cattle around him several times and when that didn't disturb him they pulled off his boots, but he still slept on.

The church wagons arrived on July first. Maria became very sick, so John was unable to keep his engagement with Clift and Hawkins, and they decided to go with the church wagon train instead. maria suffered from what they called the "bloody flux" a form of dysentery that caused pain in the abdomen and frequently bloody stools. She suffered from this ailment almost eh entire journey across the plains.

 First the immigrants received wagon assignments, six to eight people per wagon. Then the immigrants took their baggage to the bowery where it was weighed. Adults could take fifty pounds of baggage free. Twenty cents was charged for every extra pound. Fares to Utah were $41.00 for adults and $20.50 for children under eight. Most of the immigrants didn't have this money. it was just added to their perpetual immigration fund loan.

Following the weigh in, the baggage was loaded onto the wagons. Wilhelmina Bitter describes how her wagon was loaded. "Items not used daily were stacked up in the middle of the wagon as high as the bows. They made two compartments. Two families were assigned to the front of the wagon and two to the back. There was one tent for two wagons, and the necessary kettles were tied under the wagon."

John and Maria's wagon train, under the direction of Captain Ira Eldrege, was the first church train to load up and move to the out skirts of Florence. organized on July 2, with the usual officers- chaplains, clerk, sergeant of the guards, and captains over ten wagons each- the train stopped at Spring Creek, about a mile and a half from Florence. The next day it rolled eight miles west to Big Papillion Creek. Here the immigrants practiced the rudiments of camp life, such as getting water and fuel and cooking with camp fires. They also became accustomed to the forces of nature, for July heat and Missouri humidity generated three consecutive thunderstorms. John and Maria found out that tens were not waterproof.

 For nine days the camp hardly moved. Captain Eldredge waited for the other three Church trains to outfit and also for needed cooking kettles to arrive. During the halt, diarrhea plagued some passengers, forcing Captain Eldredge to move camp one-quarter mile on July 7 to solve sanitation problems. The wagon train finally received it's twenty-seven kettles and started the "back" trip to Utah on July 12.

The second captain told Maria not to walk very much, but the teamster, William Hunter, often refused to let her ride. On one occasion, John and Maria were walking , but could not keep up with the train. They were about to be left behind, when an old gentleman who had joined the company with his own outfit, asked what the matter was. He saw that Maria could not walk, so he invited her to ride into camp in his wagon. John relates.

 "Sometimes Maria was so feeble that she would have to hold on to the hind end of the wagon with one hand and I would hold her up on the other side and thus we would travel until we reached camp, all tired and worn out. This continued all the way across the plains until at last, Brother Park, who was in the next wagon to us went to the Captain and informed him as to the condition of Sister Sharp, for by this time she had become very sick with Bloody Flux. The Captain went to the teamster and gave him a good talking to after which the teamster came to me and apologized and let Sister Sharp ride, which she did until we reached Salt Lake City, on the 15th day of September, 1861. We were tired and weary of traveling through sandy deserts for over 1,000 miles by ox teams. There were only two decent stops on the way; one at Devils Gate and one at Sweet Waters. We made camp at those places and had a general clean up. Sometimes on the way we had no water, other times no wood, and we had to carry a sack pick up dried buffalo chips for making fire; but we always had a good supply of sand and dust.

" The 1861 emegration was unusual because it occured during the outbreak of the Civil War and because it initiated the "down and back" method for moving poor saints to the west. Close to 4,000 saints emigrated from Florence to Utah in the twelve 1861 companies. Most amazing was the fact, stated by Elder McAllister, that "Every Saint who reached Florence and desired to go home (To Utah) this season has had the privilege."

 John and Maria were met at the Sugar House area by Charles Sharp and David Adams. Charles was John's brother who had arrived in Utah five years earlier. David Adams was a was an old friend of the Sharp family from Northampton, England. They were taken to the Adams home for dinner. John relates: "we enjoyed the dinner very much, it being the first decent meal we had sat down to for nearly six months. We were so tired and weary that their kind hospitality was appreciated beyond our power of expression."