Katurah Vaughan and Her
Jones In-laws
By Ronald D. Dennis
(December 2007)
On 19 April 1849, two days after the Buena Vista had been towed into the port of New Orleans, Captain
Ebenezer H. Linnell submitted the “Report and List” of his passengers to the
port authorities. The preprinted form is arranged in columns with seven
headings:
1.
Names
2.
Age
3.
Sex
4.
Occupation, Trade or Profession
5.
County to which they severally belong
6.
Country of which they intend to become inhabitants
7.
Remarks
Eight of the 257 passengers are designated “Cabin Passengers”
at the end of the list, meaning that they had made the fifty-day crossing from
Liverpool to New Orleans with accommodations on deck superior to those down
below. The five men and three women, all in their twenties except for
thirteen-year-old Ann, were from England and intended to “become inhabitants”
of the “U. S.” Having paid more for their passage, the cabin passengers enjoyed
more personal space and better food than did the 249 other passengers who made
the crossing in “steerage” – i.e., in the cramped conditions down in the hold
of the ship. All 249 were from Wales
and intended to “become inhabitants” of “Calafornia” [sic] in the western part
of the American continent that included what is now Utah, their true destination. As Mormon converts
these 249 were simply gathering to their “Zion”
in Salt Lake City, a city established by Brigham
Young and his followers in the Rocky Mountains
only twenty-one months before.
Built just the year before at Newburyport,
Massachusetts, the Buena Vista was a new and
seaworthy ship. But at 547 tons it was also a very small vessel – too small, in
fact, to accommodate the other 80 Welsh Mormons who had gathered in Liverpool at the same time as the 249 – the 80 were asked
to delay their departure until the following week when they set sail on the Hartley.
My desire to learn more about Dan Jones, my great-great
grandfather, first caused me to seek out the passenger lists for the Buena Vista and
the Hartley. Dan Jones is listed as Buena Vista
passenger #1, and in the fourth column the word “Saints” is written in as his
profession. Such a strange sounding profession makes sense once one understands
that Mormons call themselves “Saints” according to the Biblical use – i.e.,
followers of Christ and members of his Church. [Now therefore ye are no more
strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the
household of God. – Ephesians 2:19]
As I reviewed the names of the passengers I came to the
realization that many of these “fellowcitizens with the saints” were people
that Dan Jones had brought into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
during his mission to his native land over the previous four years. This
discovery infused me with a desire to learn everything I possibly could about
all the “Saints” on board the Buena Vista and
the Hartley.
I made a list of all the 249 Buena Vista passengers and combed through the Hartley passengers to identify the ones from Wales. I spent
many hours at the Genealogical Society in the old Montgomery Ward building on State Street in Salt Lake City searching
through the family group records submitted as part of the “Four Generation
Program”. The dozens of letters I sent to the submitters of records on the
Welsh who were on board the Buena Vista or the Hartley
brought a gratifying response. Many sent biographies and pictures of their
Welsh forebears. In the Millennial Star,
the periodical published in English in Liverpool, and in Prophwyd y Jubili (Prophet of the Jubilee), the periodical
published in Welsh in Merthyr Tydfil, I discovered a number of letters and
articles in which the writers discussed plans for a group of Welsh converts to
gather in Liverpool in February of 1849 to set sail for America. The result was
a book entitled The Call of Zion: the Story of the
First Welsh Mormon Emigration.
Unfortunately, I was unable to locate information on many of
the passengers. Among those that remained a mystery were Buena Vista passengers #101 through 110 – John Jones, a 51-year-old
farmer, his 47-year-old wife Jane, and their seven children: William (age 25),
Ann (age 18), John (age 15), Mary (age 13), Jane (age 11), David (age 9), and
Sarah (age 5). Only for John Jones is the surname written out. Ditto marks beneath
“Jones” for John’s wife and children indicate the family relationship. But for
passenger #110 no surname is given, nor are there ditto marks to link her with
the foregoing Jones family. The name in the first column is “Ceteria”; her age
is 22; but no other information is given for her except for the ditto marks in
columns six and seven to indicate she is from Wales and going to “Calafornia”.
With no other information to go on I thought perhaps Ceteria
was the servant of the John Jones family hired by them to help with the younger
children, even though there was no such indication in column four. Twenty years
after my initial research the mystery was solved for me by a great-grand nephew
of Ceteria by the name of Colin Morgan. Writing from Llanelli, Carmarthenshire,
Colin clarified that “Ceteria” [pronounced Keteria – the letter “c” in Welsh
when followed by a vowel has a “k” sound] was really “Katurah” and that her maiden name
was “Vaughan”.
Also that Katurah was the wife of 25-year-old William Jones (Buena Vista passenger #103). Why their names are
not together as husband and wife on the shipping list is unclear.
And from Doug Patten, a descendant of John and Jane Jones, I
learned that William (Buena Vista
passenger #103) was christened 20 April 1823 while his parents were living at a
farm named “Van” in the village
of Llangendeirne. Doug
also provided the following information about William’s siblings:
1.
His sister Anne (Buena Vista passenger #104)
was born 3 April 1831 in Carmarthenshire. On 16 May 1851 she married Thomas
Williams at Council Point, Pottawattamie,
Iowa. She died 16 April 1904 at York Township,
Pottawattamie, Iowa.
2.
His brother John (Buena Vista passenger #105)
was born in 1832 in Carmarthenshire. He was killed “probably by bandits” in
1857 at Gravelly Ford just north of Richfield,
Utah. [See the biography of David
T. Jones in History of Pottawattamie
County, O. L. Baskins & Company, 1883, p. 273.]
3.
His sister Mary (Buena Vista passenger #106)
was born 25 December 1834 at Pontyates (Pontiets), Carmarthenshire. On 28
January 1854 she married John Davis Jones in Utah. On 25 August 1917 she died at Cherry
Creek, Oneida County, Idaho.
4.
His sister Jane (Buena Vista passenger #107)
was born in 1836 at Pontyates (Pontiets), Carmarthenshire. She died in 1850 at Council Bluffs, Iowa.
5.
His brother David (Buena Vista passenger #108)
was born 8 August 1838 at Llangendeirne. On 24 July 1859 he married Mary Mason
in Box Elder County, Utah. He died 8 January 1898 at York Township,
Pottawattamie County, Iowa.
6.
His sister Sarah (Buena Vista passenger #109)
was born16 June 1844 at GwnDwn Mawr farm in Llangendeirne. On 24 July 1860 she
married Henry S. Watkins in Box Elder
County, Utah. She
died on 31 July 1916 at Council Bluffs, Pottawattamie County, Iowa.
Doug provided the following information about William’s
parents:
His father John Jones was born in about 1797 in
Carmarthenshire. On 12 November 1822 he married Jane Treharne at Llangendeirne.
He died in October 1850 at Council
Bluffs, Iowa.
His mother Jane Treharne Jones was born 12 February 1801 at
Llangendeirne. On 12 November 1822 she married John Jones at Llangendeirne.
Having been a widow for about a year, on 9 October 1851 she married Daniel
Morgan Williams, her daughter Anne’s father-in-law. She died at Norwalk Township,
Pottawattamie County, Iowa, on 15 July 1871.
I am indebted to a 1909 biography of Katurah Vaughan for
further clarifications. Katurah was still alive at the time and was thus the
source of the information contained in her biography. The writer’s name is not
given, but it may have been a daughter who was following instructions given by
the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers to record the histories of the pioneers who
were still living.
Her biography makes clear that Katurah’s decision to receive
baptism at the hands of the Mormon missionaries was opposed by her parents and
siblings. But the entire family of her husband William Jones was converted and
even some of his relatives. “There was [sic] about ten relatives and close
friends of her husband’s family on board, and one of his aunts died at St. Louis.” This sentence
from the biography was also a mystery until I learned that William’s mother’s
maiden name was Treharne. There is a Treharne family on the Buena Vista – that of William and Ann
Treharne and their five children (Buena Vista passengers
#113 – 119). The family group records of the four-generation program show that William
Treharne was Jane Treharne Jones’s older brother and consequently William’s
uncle. Since the Treharne’s were also from Llangendeirne it is safe to assume
that William Jones was well acquainted with his Uncle William, his Aunt Ann and
his cousins John, Mary, Jane, Sarah, Sage, and William.
On 3 May 1849 William’s Aunt Ann Treharne was the eighth of
this ill-fated group to fall victim to cholera, a disease that would claim 44
lives – nearly one in five – of the 249 Buena Vista passengers between 28 April and 21 May
1849. The deaths were recorded by Thomas Jeremy (Buena Vista passenger #153) in a small notebook that is now housed
at the Church Historian’s Library in Salt
Lake City. On 15 May 1849 Thomas made the following death
entry: “Wm mab Gwndwn Mawr”. “Mab” is the Welsh word for “son”, but I had no
clue as to the significance of “Gwndwn Mawr” until I received information from
Doug Patten that William’s sister Sarah had been born at “Gwndwn Mawr”, a farm
in Llangendeirne. Because of the similarity of their names the Welsh often use
nicknames to distinguish one John Jones from another. Apparently William’s
father John Jones was known by the nickname of “Gwndwn”, his farm.
Consequently, the mystery of the identity of “Wm mab Gwndwn Mawr” was resolved
– it was “William, the son of John Jones of Gwndwn Mawr Farm”.
The Treharne’s oldest son John crossed the Atlantic
the following year on the Joseph Badger
with his wife and two small children. Tragically, all four of them died of
cholera on the Mississippi River somewhere between New
Orleans and St. Louis.
Also William’s uncle William Treharne died in October 1850 at Council Bluffs.
Knowing a bit more about
Katurah’s in-laws provides a somewhat clearer picture of what life was like for
her in Council Bluffs during the three years following the arrival of the Buena Vista group. During the time that
her father-in-law was still alive certainly Katurah would have been considered
part of the family and cared for, especially since she was five months pregnant
with her in-laws’ first grandchild when her husband William died. If the death
date of October 1850 for her father-in-law is accurate that would mean that he
died about the same time as his thirteen-month-old grandson, little William
Daniel Jones, the posthumous son of William and Katurah. In October 1850
Katurah’s in-laws consisted of her mother-in-law, her 19-year-old sister-in-law
Anne, her 18-year-old brother-in-law John, her 15-year-old sister-in-law Mary,
her 12-year-old brother-in-law David, and her 6-year-old sister-in-law Sarah.
Her 14-year-old sister-in-law Jane died sometime during 1850.
Katurah’s biography contains no
details of her time in Council Bluffs,
but one could safely assume that she lived with her in-laws in whatever housing
they managed to arrange. Following the death of her child and her father-in-law
she most likely endeavored to find some way to contribute to the family’s
welfare. After all, her widowed mother-in-law was no doubt struggling to take
care of her five surviving children, only two of which were old enough to get
work and help feed the family. The Welsh in Council Bluffs because of their common
language and culture would naturally cling to one another even in the best of
circumstances. But with the tremendous loss of life from which only a few
families escaped, coupled with their extreme poverty, they had all the more
reason for one to help the other. Only about eighty of the Buena Vista passengers and the Welsh passengers on the Hartley had the financial means to
continue on to the Salt
Lake Valley
in 1849. The others had little choice but to remain in Council
Bluffs or to go to places in the area where they could obtain jobs,
some even as far away as St. Louis.
The objective of those who remained faithful to their religious commitments was
to accumulate enough money to purchase a “fit-out” – i.e., a team of oxen, a
wagon, and supplies – and make the thousand-mile overland journey to the Rocky
Mountains as soon as possible. It is hard to say what Katurah did during her
time in Council Bluffs.
Perhaps she obtained some form of work helping a motherless family. Or she may
have cooked food for the steady stream of gold seekers that passed through Council Bluffs on their way to California. It is certain that she did not
remain idle, as no one had that luxury.
Those of the Welsh who remained
in Council Bluffs, in an area known as
“Cambria’s Camp”, constituted the Welsh branch of the Church – 113 of them
according to their leader William Morgan (Buena Vista passenger #10).
Morgan was an engineer from Merthyr Tydfil who had lost his wife in Wales and his 20-year-old son on the Missouri River. From time to time Morgan sent letters to
President William Phillips, Dan Jones’s substitute back in Wales, with news of the Welsh in Council Bluffs. Four of
these letters were printed in Udgorn
Seion (Zion’s
Trumpet), the Welsh Mormon periodical that continued under a different name
after Prophwyd y Jubili (Prophet of
the Jubilee). English translations of these letters are in The Call of Zion: the Story of the First Welsh Mormon Emigration
beginning on pages 178, 192, 204, and 211.
In his letter dated 2 September
1849 William Morgan reported to President Phillips:
We, the
Welsh, have almost all our land adjoining; and Brother Jones has purchased a
land claim which is 150 or more acres, near our lands, and has entrusted it to
my care for a gift to the Welsh. We intend to build a meetinghouse on it, as
soon as we can; and I think that will not be long, for the hard part of our
work is over; our wheat harvest is past, all of it under cover.
On 9 October 1851, about a year
after her first husband’s death, Katurah’s mother-in-law married Daniel Morgan
Williams, a widower from Llantrisant, Glamorganshire. Daniel had come to America the
year before on board the Josiah Bradlee
with his 24-year-old son Thomas and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah. Daniel
Morgan Williams was already well acquainted with the John Jones family since
his son Thomas had married John and Jane’s daughter Anne Jones five months
earlier on 16 May 1851. No doubt it brought great comfort to Katurah’s mother-in-law to
have two more men in the family in the void of the two she had lost. With the
help of her new husband and son-in-law the challenge of crossing the plains to
the Rocky Mountains would not be so
overwhelming.
William Morgan, president of the
Welsh branch in Council Bluffs,
was also the leader of the Welsh who crossed the plains in 1852. Katurah
Vaughan Jones was part of that crossing, as were her in-laws and the
Treharne’s. Three of William Morgan’s letters to William Phillips about the
journey were printed in Udgorn Seion,
and their English translations are in The
Call of Zion beginning on pages 233, 234, and 236.
From the time of her marriage to
William Jones on 21 November 1848 Katurah Vaughan had a close association with
her husband’s family. They may well have taken her into their home in
Llangendeirne for the eleven-week period before they all gathered at Swansea to board the
steamer Troubador. They were seasick
together during the thirty hours it took the Troubador to transport them to Liverpool.
They took lodgings together at the five-storey Music Hall on Bold Street in Liverpool for the ten-day
waiting period before they could go on board the Buena Vista at the nearby
Waterloo Dock. They shared the experience of the fifty-day crossing of the Atlantic. They combined their sorrows as William was
buried on the bank of the Missouri River after
only 176 days of marriage. They lived and worked together during their three
years at Cambria’s Camp in Council
Bluffs. And together they traversed the thousand-mile
trail to Salt Lake City
during the summer of 1852.
In Salt Lake City Katurah,
perhaps not wanting to be a burden on the Jones family, ended up living with a
non-Mormon family by the name of McPherson. The McPhersons were very kind to
her and invited her to go with them when they left Utah
for California.
Katurah declined and instead went to live with the Reese Jones family in Salt Lake City where she became better acquainted with the
young widower Charles Vincent, also from Wales
– she had known the Vincents in Council
Bluffs. A few months later she and Charles were
married, on 9 May 1853. And shortly thereafter they established residence in Provo, about forty-five miles to the south of Salt Lake City, where
they remained for the rest of their lives.
Katurah’s Jones in-laws, however,
settled about fifty miles north of Salt Lake City
in the town of Willard.
She was probably not able to attend the marriage of her sister-in-law Mary to
John Davis Jones in January 1854 in Willard because of the travel distance. Whether
she was aware of the return of her sister-in-law Ann to the Midwest
with her husband in about 1857 is not clear. [The 1880 United States Census
shows that Ann and Thomas Williams’ son John was born in Missouri in 1858.] Katurah’s brother-in-law
David married Mary Mason on 24 July 1859 in Box Elder County (probably
Willard), and a year later her sister-in-law Sarah married Henry S. Watkins on
24 July 1860 in Box Elder County (probably in Willard).
In 1860 Katurah’s sister-in-law
Sarah and her husband returned to Council
Bluffs. And by 1861 her brother-in-law David and his
wife had returned. Her mother-in-law and her second husband also returned, but
it is not clear when they made the journey. The reason for the exodus from Utah back to Iowa
was apparently a religious one – they had converted to the Reorganized Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
The only one of the John and Jane
Treharne Jones family who remained in the Rocky Mountains
and did not change religions was Mary. In 1869 she moved with her husband and
children to homestead Cherry Creek in Southern Idaho.
A short write-up on Katurah’s
brother-in-law David Jones was printed in the History of Pottawattamie County in 1883. An obituary for her
sister-in-law Sarah appeared in the Neola
Gazette-Reporter in 1916. And a brief biography of her sister-in-law Mary was
published in Volume 2 of Malad Valley
History. To round out the story of Katurah Vaughan’s in-laws these
documents together with her 1909 biography are transcribed here in their
entirety.
David T. Jones, farmer. P. O. Neola, was born in South Wales August
7, 1838; he is the son of John and Jane (Treehorn) Jones; his father was a
native of Wales.
He was a farmer, and died in Council
Bluffs in the fall of 1850. His (subject’s) mother was
also born in Wales
in 1800. She died in Norwalk
Township, this county,
July 12, 1871. Our subject’s advantages for an education were very meager,
owing to his parents’ continually traveling during his school years. He came to
Council Bluffs
with his parents in 1840. In 1850, the father died. In 1852, the family moved
to Utah,
where they lived for nine years. In 1857, one of the brothers was killed at
Gravelly Ford, probably by bandits. Our subject was married, in Box Elder County, Utah,
July 24, 1859, to Mary Mason, born in Wales March 15, 1836. She is the
daughter of John and Anne (Davis) Mason, both of
whom were in the employ of Lord Crosier; her parents came to America in 1850, and to Council Bluffs the following year. In 1861,
our subject returned to Council Bluffs,
and in the winter of that year moved onto his present farm. He bought 120 acres
at first, but has since made additions, until now he has 400 acres of improved
land, part of which is in timber. His farm is situated on a tributary of Keg
Creek. Mr. and Mrs. Jones have had ten children – John, born in Utah June, 1860; Mary
A., born in December, 1861; Jane R., born September 19, 1863; Ida L., born
October 1, 1865; Albert, born July 28, 1868, died July 12, 1869; Sarah, born
January 31, 1870, died November 10, 1881; Ellen, born November 16, 1871;
William H., born February 16, 1874; Franklin, born December 2, 1875; Charles
E., born March 16, 1878. In politics, Mr. Jones is a Democrat. [History of Pottawattamie
County, Iowa, Chicago: O. L. Baskin
& Co., 1883, p. 273.]
Mrs. Sarah T. Watkins, wife of the late H. S. Watkins, pioneer Iowa
woman and for many years a resident of Neola, died suddenly Monday [31 July
1916] at the home of her daughter, Mrs. W. B. Currie, in Council Bluffs, a
recent illness from which she had apparently recovered and the infirmities of
old age being responsible for her calling. She was 72 years of age. The funeral
was held yesterday, Wednesday following short services at the Council Bluffs home, the remains being
brought here where further services were held at the Presbyterian church
conducted by Elder D. R. Chambers of the L. D. S. church. Interment was in the
Neola cemetery. [This was most likely the RLDS church.]
Sarah T. Jones, daughter of
John and Jane Jones, was born in Clartha, Wales,
June 16th, 1844, coming to America with her parents in early
girlhood. They located first in Utah,
then a territory, and was there united in marriage July 24th, 1860,
to Henry S. Watkins. To the union was born nine children, four sons and five
daughters, two of whom survive. They are Mrs. W. B. Currie of Council Bluffs and D. A. Watkins of Woodbine.
She is also survived by a sister, Mrs. Mary Jones of Malad, Idaho,
five grandchildren and other more distant relatives.
Mrs. Watkins, with her
husband, came to western Iowa
in 1860 and has been a continual resident of the vicinity every since. For some
years they lived on a farm near this city, later coming to Neola where the
family home was located up to a few years ago, when, upon the death of Mr.
Watkins, she went to Council Bluffs,
her daughter, Mrs. Etta Bardsley, making her home with her. Mrs. Bardsley’s
death, but a few weeks ago, caused Mrs. Watkins, to take up her residence with
her daughter, Mrs. Currie. During the past winter and spring she suffered a
prolonged illness but recovered and while not strong, there was nothing to
indicate that she would be called to answer the final summons for some time to
come. The end was peaceful though sudden.
The deceased was a woman of
noble qualities and was beloved by everyone with whom she came in contact. Her
home life was ideal and her passing was the cause of genuine sorrow among the
people of the community. [3 August 1916 obituary – The Neola Gazette-Reporter.]
Mary Jones was born December 23, 1834, in the village
of Pont Yates, within the Parish of
Llangendeirne, Carmarthen, Wales.
Her parents were John Jones, a farmer, and his wife, Jane Treharne. They were
married November 12, 1822, in the parish church at Llangendeirne. Her brothers
and sisters were William, Anne, John, David, and Sarah.
The family sailed from Liverpool, England
on the ship Buena
Vista, February 25,
1849, with 249 Welsh saints on board, under the direction of Dan Jones. The
ship arrived in New Orleans
April 18, 1849. From there they traveled up the Mississippi
in the steamer The Highland Mary to St. Louis and then to Council Bluffs, Iowa.
Mary married John Davis Jones
January 28, 1854. They settled in Willard,
Utah, where seven of their ten
children were born. In April of 1869, John moved Mary and their children north
to homestead Cherry Creek, Idaho, which was then a desolate sage brush
flat with any number of snakes, coyotes, and wolves.
Mary had a very pleasant
personality. Her grandchildren always liked to go visit her. She would have
them gather up chips for her fire so she could make her tea, like the typical
Welsh woman she was. She and her daughter-in-law Gwenford Williams Jones would
talk together in Welsh, and of course the children couldn’t understand what
they were saying. Mary was left a widow in 1900. In her later years she went blind.
She died August 25, 1917, in Cherry Creek at the age of 82 and was buried there
beside her husband. [Malad Valley History: Early Settlers of Malad Valley
Pre-1880, Malad Welsh Society, v. 2 (2006), p. 62.]
Katurah Vincent was born on the
fifteenth of October 1828 at the town of Easmarthere,
Carmarthenshire, Wales.
Her parents were John and Rachel (Daniels) Vaughan, her father being a farmer
and also worked at the copper works in the neighborhood of the home. Her
parents were of the State Church of England and did not become identified with
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Her home life was without any particular occurrence; all was peace, quiet
and happiness. She remained under the paternal roof until she attained the age
of 21 years, with the exception of being at service with a neighboring squire's
family - "Squire Saunders". This was an old and well-known family of
considerable wealth and influence. There were six daughters and two sons. She
remained with this family for about two years leading a pleasant life.
After this she lived as a girl with a Mr. Samuel Griffith, a farmer and then
with a Mr. Edward Benbow who held an office under government as exciseman, and
whose residence was about three miles from her parents' home. Here she met Mr.
William Jones and first heard of Mormonism. It was noised about that there
would be a meeting of the Mormons in a house nearby, and she, together with a
few young companions, including William Jones, went to hear them. She listened
to the doctrines and principles as expounded by the Elders which made quite an
impression upon her, and upon having the gospel further explained, she was
baptized sometime in September, 1848.
Her parents and relatives were much opposed to her joining the church; her
six brothers and two sisters were all opposed to her action. (Two of her
brothers are alive at this writing, 1909.) There were no Mormons in the
neighborhood. After a short courtship she married Mr. William Jones on the 21st
of November, 1848, soon after she was baptized.
The spirit of the gathering soon took possession of the hearts of the young
couple and presently preparations were made for journeying to Zion. She remembers how one of her girl
companions turned against her, after a long and affectionate acquaintance. When
she became a Mormon this Maria Griffith became her enemy and was most bitter in
reproaching her for joining the Church. Notwithstanding this feeling of
opposition, quite a large number of the family journeyed down to Swansea to see the young people embark on the small
steamer for Liverpool, and with sorrowful
hearts they parted with their friends and native land.
Captain Dan Jones was one of the party of emigrants and took charge of the
little company on the trip up the St. George Channel. This was a rough one and
they were pleased to disembark at Liverpool.
On February 25, 1849, they embarked on the sailing ship Buena Vista with 249 Welsh saints on board under the direction of
Dan Jones, and after a voyage of eight weeks across the mighty ocean, they
landed at New Orleans.
During the voyage two old ladies died and were buried at sea. Once they went
through a terrible ordeal when the cry of fire was raised, consequent upon a
cook spilling a large quantity of grease upon the fire. The sailors soon had
the fire out and order restored, although there was quite a panic.
At New Orleans they took the river boat for Council Bluffs. The long,
tedious trip up this wonderful river was trying on the travel-worn people.
While on the Missouri
the cholera broke out, and here came on the of the great trials of Katurah's
life. Her young husband took the disease and died May 16, 1849, and was buried
on the east bank of the Missouri.
The tensions of the nerves and minds of the emigrating saints under the
accumulated trials and hardships of travel, to some extent softened any one
affliction, in meeting so many trials and privations daily encountered; still
the hasty burial of her husband in a grave by the river's bank was a sore
trial.
There was about ten relatives and close friends of her husband's family on
board, and one of his aunts died at St.
Louis. At Council
Bluffs they found Apostle Benson in charge helping and
instructing the Saints.
While here at the Bluffs her first child was born, September 16, 1849, not
four months after the death of her husband. He was named William Daniel Jones,
and died at the age of thirteen months and was buried at Council Bluffs; thus two of her dear ones
have been laid away in unknown graves.
She lived at Council Bluffs
three years, William Morgan presiding over the Welsh Saints. Apostle Orson Hyde
was with them part of the time. The settlement was right in the river bottom
and the consequence was that the chills and fever became prevalent. Here
Katurah made the acquaintance of the Vincent family.
In 1852 she left Council Bluffs with a wagon
train for Salt Lake City.
William Morgan was captain of the division in which she traveled. The usual
trials and episodes occurred on the march – buffalo were seen in great herds,
some were killed and brought into camp. Indians visited them, were given
presents and left in peace. At Laramie
a great number of Indians were met, but all were peaceful. One little boy was
run over and died from the effects of the injuries received.
On her arrival in Salt Lake City
she went to live with a family by the name of McPherson, non-members of the
Church-they were storekeepers. Here she had the mountain fever, so-called, and
was very ill. During this sickness the McPhersons tended her with great care
and kindness. Upon their leaving the territory for California they offered her every inducement
to go with them, but her religious connections kept her with the Saints.
After the McPhersons left she lived at the home of Mr. Reese Jones of the 15th
Ward, Salt Lake City,
and making the acquaintance of Charles Vincent. She was married to him on May 9th,
1853, by Bishop Jenkins, and came with her husband to Provo where she has since resided on the same
city plot to which her husband brought her on that occasion.
The Vincent family consisted of the old folks, one daughter and three sons,
Charles, her husband, being the elder son. They acquired a large section of the
best farming land west of Provo
and by the skill as farmers raised large crops of wheat so that from the bins
of the Vincent's, many were fed, and seed wheat supplied to many of the
settlers in those early days.
Mr. Vincent's family is as follows:
Edward Vincent - born April 23, 1854
Charles Sidney Vincent - born August 14, 1856
Rachel Elizabeth Vincent Gillespie - born December 25, 1858 (deceased)
Harriet Maria Vincent Smith - born February 16, 1861
John George Vincent - born June 4, 1865
David John Vincent - born November 17, 1868
Mrs. Vincent in her earlier years attended to the duties of teacher in the
Relief Society of the Second Ward, visiting in company with the deceased sister
Louisa S. Park. At this writing (August 1909) she is in the enjoyment of fair
health for her age, and together with her husband, living in comfort-the
results of a life spent in helping to develop the resources of the state to
which God led her from her native land in the days of her youth.
(Charles Vincent was a widower and had one child, our present well-known
citizen, Thomas H. Vincent, who received the kind and motherly care of Sister
Katurah.)
[Biography of Katurah Vaughan submitted to the Daughters of the Utah
Pioneers.]
