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Show Morgan Pioneer History Binds Us Together well remembers how Daniel Clark would sit at his workbench and sing in his beautiful baritone voice: "Come, Come ye Saints, no toil nor labor fear, but with joy wend your way;" and, no double they also sang, "Come go with me beyond the sea where happiness is true." By the first of the year 1864, they were almost ready to start on the journey. On the first day of June 1864, Daniel and Elizabeth led their little flock down to the wharf and embarked on the good ship Hudson and sailed away for a new country, to them the "promised land," the "land of Joseph." Many of them were never to see their native land again. There was a large company of Saints on the ship under charge of certain church officials. Daniel and Elizabeth had five children ranging in age from three and one half to sixteen years. The five children were Catherine, Arthur Benjamin, Ellen Victoria, Rosa and Frederick William. The three older girls were already in Utah, and they had buried two infant sons in England. There were seven weeks on the water and the trials of that trip would be hard to imagine, much less to describe. Elizabeth was naturally a strong, healthy woman, but no sooner were they on the water than she became very seasick and had to keep to her bed most of the way. Measles broke out on the ship as well as other forms of sickness. Two of Elizabeth's younger children took the measles in a violent form, but their lives were spared, while nine of the company died and were buried in the ocean. Imagine Elizabeth's feeling when she was so sick herself, knowing her children were also very ill. But she was blessed even in this sore trial, for her ever faithful husband and her sixteen year old daughter were well all the way across the water. They landed in New York and were kept in quarantine ten days before entering the U.S.A. This was during the War Between the States, the North and the South, and they had to take a detour up throughout Canada and across the country to about as far west as Chicago before they could again enter the country. They traveled in box cars and on flat boats across the country to the Missouri River. Eleven of the company died on this trip across the country, but the Clark family was again spared and reached the camping place on the Missouri River. There they were met by freighters with ox teams sent out from the valleys to bring them to Utah. They remained here two weeks preparing for the journey across the plains. This little breathing spell must have been a relief to the travel worn women and children, but there was much work to be done to prepare for such a trek as that which they now faced. It was mid-summer by this time and the sun beat down more severely than the English people were accustomed to. The cattle had to be herded at night as well as by day. Daniel Clark took his turn at this, as well as at any other kind of work that had to be done. The hot days and the cool nights gave him a severe cold. The change in altitude was almost as severe on him. As the journey reached the dry, sunbaked plains, the drinking water was scarce and contaminated causing a scourge of cholera to break out in camp which took many lives. It is said that they would stop morning, noon and night to bury the dead. Sixty-four died of this plague. Among those who laid their bodies down on the plains was Daniel Clark. He died and was buried without a casket at the first crossing of the North Piatt River near Ft. Laramie, Wyoming. It was not definitely known at this time what caused his death. It was perhaps complications resulting from exposure, hardships and change of climate. He died at seven o'clock in the morning in July. He was buried and the company on its way by eight o'clock. They dared not take time to give a decent burial to the dead or the summer would be passed before they could cross the high mountains. Being caught in a snowstorm in crossing the mountains would have been a fearful thing. The death of her beloved husband was a severe blow to Elizabeth. She thought she could not give him up, or at least that she could not survive without him, but he told her she must be brave and carry on for the sake of her children. He said she would be able to finish the journey to the valley of the mountains, then live to rear the children, which she did. They were traveling in William Hyde's Company. The wagons were loaded with freight for the merchants of Salt Lake Valley and there was not room for any one to ride who could possibly walk. Only the sick, the old or the very young had a chance to ride. The Clark family paid the teamsters so much money for their passage, but Ellen Clark Hale, then the sixteen year old daughter, who said she walked every step of the way from the Missouri River to Salt Lake City, and drove a team of three or four yoke of oxen most of the way. When we consider the way Elizabeth had been reared in a sheltered home in a city all her life, we wonder how she was able to bear the stillness of the vast expanse of the plains or the rugged majesty of the mountains. Perhaps the only sounds to be heard on the plains would be the moan of the sick, the weeping of the bereft family, the creaking of the wagons, the cracking of the driver's whip, or the mournful cry of the coyote; or perhaps worse, the war whoop |