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Show 236 John Tanner and His Family load in mothering the orphaned children. Under ordinary circumstances this might have occasioned some gossip as Sidney's former wife had been dead only two months. But life was so grim and there was so much to be done, that social customs were easily overlooked. 13 heavy With the exception of the tragedy that took the life of Sidney's six-year old son," the 1,040 miles from Winter Quarters to Salt Lake City, was an uneventful, but difficult trip. Food while plentiful, was largely corn and pork, and forage for animals was always in short supply causing animals to fade and die by the way. The road was literally strewn with the carcasses of oxen and cattle worn out in the wearisome struggle to achieve the western goal. The Richards-Lyman company in which Sidney and the family West left Winter Quarters June 29, 1848, and arrived in the Salt Lake Valley about the nineteenth of October. They were some thing over a hundred days making a little over a thousand miles, or came approximately Jen miles a day. Upon his arrival in Salt Lake he, along with the other Tanners settled at south Cottonwood. This area is described by Andrew Jenson, in the Historical Record as follows: When Apostle Amasa M. Lyman arrived in Great Salt Lake Valley with his company of Saints, in October, 1848, he located a part of them at a point between the two Cottonwood Creeks, about ten miles south-east from the Great Salt Lake fort. A tract of country, con sisting of about one mile square, was surveyed and divided into 10acre lots for the convenience of the settlers, among whom were John Tanner and sons Sidney and Nathan. The place of their loca tion was subsequently known as the "Amasa Survey."!" ... Sidney was to remain at this location just a little more than two years during which time his father, John Tanner died-April 13, 1850 and a son Albert Miles was born March 5, 1850.1 - A movement was generated to establish a Mormon colony in southern California, and in 1851 most of the Tanners, including Sidney and family, joined Amasa M. Lyman, who was. appointed to IS head the mission. Only Nathan and his family were left at south but he was joined by the John Joshua Tanner Cottonwood, family from who arrived Kanesville, Iowa, in 1851. The story of the San Bernardino Mission has been told in another chapter. During this seven-year period Sidney was prominent- |
