Interview of Celestial Roberts Knight
. . . [She] came from England
in a sailing vessel. John Bright, an
emigrant ship carrying over 700 passengers, all Mormons from various European
countries; Sweden, Norway and Denmark, etc.
Celestial was seasick before the tug boat went back. It lasted from shore to
shore. Every morning she was brought a hot jug of coffee, with heavy cream and
sugar bread and butter, which she handed to her mother or sister or some of the
older women.
There were two stowaways: one a man and a small child of about 13 years old.
They had seen them as the ship was getting ready to sail. They used such foul
language that the captain threatened to throw them overboard.
June 4, 1868. Six weeks on the sea. [p.131]
Castle Garden
in New York.
July 1868. Took train to Ft. Leavenworth (it may have been Ft.
Laramie) by way of St.
Louis, Chicago, Detroit, etc. That was before the Chicago fire. They bought
their food on the way. They had to wait in Leavenworth
(Laramie) for a
train. The people came in a mob to see them and stared at them as if they were
cattle. They acted as if they had never seen a person before. The reason was
that they were Mormons and one well dressed woman with some girls acted so
impudent that Philip her brother who was on guard, had to put her out of the
enclosure. The mob became so abusive that the men in charge loaded them on
cattle cars and started them westward.
John Murdock and a
man named Warner.
Mule teams and horse teams. They could see Indians ahead and in the distance,
and Captain Murdock counseled them to drive out
around the railroad camps and do not stop day or night till they got out of the
way of the camps and thus they would avoid the rough element that is generally
found around the railroad camps as well as the Indians which might be hanging
around them. No [-] was to walk. "The Scandinavian were great for walking
and that was for them more than for any of the others, as there [were] to be
nobody away from the wagons. Sometimes women would waylay them and beg them to
come to the camp and get warm or get some food. But they never did." They
reached Salt Lake City
August [p.132] 18, 1868. . . . [p.133]
BIB: Knight, Celestial Roberts, [Interview], "Utah Pioneer
Biographies," vol. 17, pp. 131-33. (FHL)
