Happy Pioneer Day

Around these parts July 24 is a local holiday. It is a day we remember and celebrate the people who traveled across many miles and settled in the Salt Lake Valley.

For a recent activity days we gathered around a fake fire and while munching on kettle corn shared family stories. While going through our family history, in search of a story to share, I found this experience.

Ebenezer Brown (my fourth great grandfather) left some of his family on the pioneer trail to go with the Mormon Battalion. His nineteen year old daughter, Harriet had married and they were in charge of bringing her younger two brothers to Utah with the other Saints.

In the year 1847 as the Saints made their way across the plains, a pleasant experience happened to Harriet. A horseman rode up to her wagon and handed her a letter. It was from her Father, Ebenezer, written while the Company rested over Sunday at El Paso, Texas. So joyful was she at receiving word form her Father, she hurriedly read the letter, unthinking to thank the man who had brought it to her.

It brought comfort and joy from their loved ones not only to her but to the entire train of emigrants, for what could bring better service to the suffering saints, than to have word from their loved ones in the Battalion.

After reading the contents of the letter, they looked up to thank the messenger, and to ask him questions, only to find he had disappeared, and was no where to be seen. The Captain of the company heard of the incident and asked Harriet where the messenger came from. She told him he had come to her wagon near the cedar trees they passed about a mile back on the trail.. The Captain sent two men back to the end of the train, past the two trees mention, looking for horse's track where the rider could have come to the train or where he may have left, but no signs of a messenger, nor any sign of horse's track could be found.

What better service to suffering humanity could be performed by on of the "Three Nephites", than to give information and comfort to these weary Saints as they plodded along, other than the hope and peace which eventually would come to them.

The information contained in the letter gave comfort to the entire train, for most everyone in the train had a husband, father, son or brother in the Battalion, and news from those hundreds of miles away was certainly a comfort and encouragement to go forward.

Later in the year 1849, when the people of the train were settled in the valley and members of the Battalion began coming back to Utah from California, Ebenezer and his wife, Pheobe, were among the first to reach Salt Lake City. After greetings were over, Harriet said to her Father, "I got the letter you wrote at El Paso."

"Yes," said Ebenezer, "I wrote you a letter at El Paso, but I never had a chance to send it, the letter is still in my pack, I'll get it for you." He went to his packs for it, but it was not to be found. Harriet brought him the letter she had brought all the way across the plains.

"That is the letter alright, said Ebenezer, "But how did you get it?" Of course Harriet told him how it had come to her and they all seemed to be of the same opinion how it had come to her.