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Show From the Mississippi to the Missouri 115 dia indicates that John left about the middle of May and that he outfitted two other families for the trip to the Missouri River." The author doubts they were that late in leaving, but there would have been good hay and for in starting. John and his sons had animals, grain, vegetables which were sorely needed by the poorly provisioned emigrants who were crowding into Sugar Creek. These he was distributing with an open hand, and the brethren probably "counseled" him to remain at Montrose until his surplus had been given away. It might have been advisable to have kept John Tanner on his Montrose farm for a number of years to assist with the emigration. reasons some delay and meat John's married sons seem Sidney, John Joshua, and Nathan to have left at different dates. Since Nathan is the only one to leave a record, there is more known about him. However, regardless of - - the time of departure, the entire Tanner family west bank of the Missouri later that fall. was reunited on the The state of unpreparedness at the time of leaving Nauvoo is almost unbelievable. Some families ran out of supplies within a week after reaching Sugar Creek, and Roberts reports that "eight hundred men reported themselves at Sugar Creek encampment, dur last two the weeks of more than a fortnight's without ing February, for and These themselves teams.'?" provisions people were all ex pecting be with someone one else to be responsible for them, and they all wanted to Authorities, preferably Brigham Young. of the General In addition to the people who at least had means to cross the river and make it to Sugar Creek, nine miles distant, were a group of people known as the "poor camp" or the "poor Saints," who had no means at all with which to mobs in Illinois move to the these unfortunate compelled they were dumped Rocky Mountains. people to cross the The Mis on the west bank for a distance Thomas L. Kane, who Colonel along visited the camp in September 1846, gives their number as 640, and describes their wretchedness. Mostly they were without tents, and his description makes one shudder: sissippi River, and of several miles its shore. Here among the docks and rushes, sheltered only by the darkness, without a roof between them and the sky, I came upon a crowd of several hundred human creatures. Dreadful indeed, was the suffering of these forsaken beings They were there because they had no homes." . . . |
