A Biography of Ezra Thompson Clark

Ezra Clark, page 015

EZRA THOMPSON CLARK Lord was with them." " We were happy and contented," says John Taylor, "and the songs of Zion resounded from wagon to wagon, reverberating through the woods, while the echo was returned from the distant hills." Camp was usually made in the early evening after travel- ing about thirteen miles each day. "There were brass and stringed instruments in every company, and night and morning all were called to prayer at the sound of the bugle. Campfires drew around them the Saints when their day's work was finished, and singing and dancing and story- telling enlivened the hour." Ezra T. Clark, a young man twenty-three years of age, took part in this historic I immigration. In the three hundred mile journey from Nauvoo to the Missouri River there were seven permanent camps estab- lished. Some of them became permanent settlements. The last one was Winter Quarters on the site of the present town of Florence which is in Nebraska across the Missouri River from Council Bluffs. As soon as the first company, of which Ezra Clark was a member, arrived at the last camp, Ezra and some of the men were called to return to Nauvoo with Colonel Mark- ham to assist the Saints there. Ezra made a trade for a light wagon, and with his companions arrived in Nauvoo in June. The Saints there had been continually harrassed by their enemies and were unable to secure outfits with which to leave the city. Among them was Ezra's wife's sister, Elizabeth Norwood. She was a widow with a family of children. After returning to what is now Council Bluffs, with this family and another large company of pioneers, Ezra and many others crossed the river in ferry boats of their own construction to Winter Quarters. President