wagons conveyed to the other side.
Twelve miles later there was another creek to be forded, and yet another shortly after that. One wagon toppled onto its side but was righted without excessive damage. The group camped, and members picked enough gooseberries “for a pudding” and found mushrooms “four inches long.”
On June 3 they traveled one mile before reaching another stream, which took them six hours to cross. Two days later the trail had become virtually impassable, and they camped. Jean Rio walked a half mile to a farmhouse where she hoped to purchase butter. The rains became so heavy she could not return to the camp, “the waters being in the hollows higher than my knees,” the thunder and howling wolves so terrifying her that she spent the night with the settlers. “We have had thunderstorms every day for four weeks,” she wrote in her diary upon returning to her family.
Three days later they were within view of the tiny settlement of Mount Pisgah, so named by the Mormon prophet and apostle Parley P. Pratt, who, in an Old Testament parallel, likened the spot to the biblical site where Moses envisioned the Promised Land. By this point in the journey, Jean Rio was fatigued and dispirited, her daily entries now successive jottings about creeks and streams all brimming to flood-stage levels; omnipresent thunderstorms; harsh, muddy terrain; waterlogged wagons; and disagreeable traveling companions. “A miserable day altogether,” she wrote on June 10. “Got 16 miles, crossed five ravines and four creeks, upset three wagons, got my own bedding wet through, and encamped by ourselves. Surely this is anything but pleasant.”
Bickering broke out among the weary Saints. Tempers flared and the children were now irritable and uncomfortable, their clothing and bedding soggy and cold. Two of the families that had joined Jean Rio’s party in Alexandria struck out on their own in six wagons—“much to the satisfaction of us all”—and now the crossing of streams required unloading all belongings from the wagons and carrying them across by hand. “We are reduced to 6 wagons (division having entered among us, the rest have left us at different times).” Four of the wagons belonged to Jean Rio, one carrying her piano, Regent Street finery, and personal items from her London home, the others the furniture and daily necessities for the overland journey. One of the other wagons in the train belonged to the “captain” and one to a family named Jones.
JUNE 14: The storm began about 11 last night and has continued without intermission till nearly noon today. I cannot describe the thunder; it is unlike any I have ever heard. As to the rain upon our wagon covers, I can only compare it to millions of shot falling on sheets of copper. Sleep is out of the question, as well as conversation, for though Aunt [Mary Ann Bateman] and I were in the same wagon it was with difficulty we could make each other heard. Of course there is no chance of proceeding, so I made up my mind to do a day’s needlework. Being on top of a hill we are not inconvenienced by the surrounding water. We are 45 miles from human habitation, but we are as merry as larks, and our now small company much happier than when there were so many of us. Our long anxiety is whether we shall be too late to go to the Valley this year.
A stranger from Virginia on horseback joined their camp and told them there were no wagons within seventy miles to the east, so any prospect that others would catch up with them and increase their ranks was diminished. On June 18 Jean Rio saw “a traveler on foot without a coat approaching on the opposite side of the creek.” He explained he was walking to St. Louis and had left Council Bluffs two days earlier. There, he told her, two hundred wagons were waiting. “So we shall not be too late at last,” wrote Jean Rio.
They pressed on with urgency, but the topography was no more hospitable than before. Crossings now required
Twelve miles later there was another creek to be forded, and yet another shortly after that. One wagon toppled onto its side but was righted without excessive damage. The group camped, and members picked enough gooseberries “for a pudding” and found mushrooms “four inches long.”
On June 3 they traveled one mile before reaching another stream, which took them six hours to cross. Two days later the trail had become virtually impassable, and they camped. Jean Rio walked a half mile to a farmhouse where she hoped to purchase butter. The rains became so heavy she could not return to the camp, “the waters being in the hollows higher than my knees,” the thunder and howling wolves so terrifying her that she spent the night with the settlers. “We have had thunderstorms every day for four weeks,” she wrote in her diary upon returning to her family.
Three days later they were within view of the tiny settlement of Mount Pisgah, so named by the Mormon prophet and apostle Parley P. Pratt, who, in an Old Testament parallel, likened the spot to the biblical site where Moses envisioned the Promised Land. By this point in the journey, Jean Rio was fatigued and dispirited, her daily entries now successive jottings about creeks and streams all brimming to flood-stage levels; omnipresent thunderstorms; harsh, muddy terrain; waterlogged wagons; and disagreeable traveling companions. “A miserable day altogether,” she wrote on June 10. “Got 16 miles, crossed five ravines and four creeks, upset three wagons, got my own bedding wet through, and encamped by ourselves. Surely this is anything but pleasant.”
Bickering broke out among the weary Saints. Tempers flared and the children were now irritable and uncomfortable, their clothing and bedding soggy and cold. Two of the families that had joined Jean Rio’s party in Alexandria struck out on their own in six wagons—“much to the satisfaction of us all”—and now the crossing of streams required unloading all belongings from the wagons and carrying them across by hand. “We are reduced to 6 wagons (division having entered among us, the rest have left us at different times).” Four of the wagons belonged to Jean Rio, one carrying her piano, Regent Street finery, and personal items from her London home, the others the furniture and daily necessities for the overland journey. One of the other wagons in the train belonged to the “captain” and one to a family named Jones.
JUNE 14: The storm began about 11 last night and has continued without intermission till nearly noon today. I cannot describe the thunder; it is unlike any I have ever heard. As to the rain upon our wagon covers, I can only compare it to millions of shot falling on sheets of copper. Sleep is out of the question, as well as conversation, for though Aunt [Mary Ann Bateman] and I were in the same wagon it was with difficulty we could make each other heard. Of course there is no chance of proceeding, so I made up my mind to do a day’s needlework. Being on top of a hill we are not inconvenienced by the surrounding water. We are 45 miles from human habitation, but we are as merry as larks, and our now small company much happier than when there were so many of us. Our long anxiety is whether we shall be too late to go to the Valley this year.
A stranger from Virginia on horseback joined their camp and told them there were no wagons within seventy miles to the east, so any prospect that others would catch up with them and increase their ranks was diminished. On June 18 Jean Rio saw “a traveler on foot without a coat approaching on the opposite side of the creek.” He explained he was walking to St. Louis and had left Council Bluffs two days earlier. There, he told her, two hundred wagons were waiting. “So we shall not be too late at last,” wrote Jean Rio.
They pressed on with urgency, but the topography was no more hospitable than before. Crossings now required
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