Tuesday, August 30, 2022

Interesting Incident Recorded by Thomas Bullock, October 25, 1846

  

Sunday 25 October 1846—Still encamped on the West side of Soap Creek. Joseph Knight, George Wardle, and John Rushton were to unload the Captain’s Wagon in order to fetch corn. Knight had to call on the Camp to assist him to empty it. McFate, Green, Meeks, and Corbett making cow jokes all day, Wardle and Bennett making bows in [the] afternoon, 5 yokes were completed. Whitehead and Lytle blacksmith all day. Berkelow hunting. A warm day, large clouds floating in the air. I was baking, carrying water, nursing, organizing Harmon and Wilson, hunting cows &c &c. My Wife washing, altho’ so very sick that she had to leave the wash tub to vomit, and when spreading her clothes on the ground to dry, had to lie full length on the prairie, and had to go and wash again, receiving no assistance from any one, altho’ single women and women with only one child were on each side of our Wagon. About four o’clock in the evening a man was purchasing goods from the brethren. Sister Savary let the Bishop have six plates, which he sold to the man for forty eight cents. Brother Samuel Savary returned to the Camp from hunting his cattle and commenced abusing his Wife with his tongue. She then told him, to “get them again then.” He went to the Bishop to get them and was very near being the means of causing the man, not trading [to quite trading], nor of our getting corn for our cattle. The Captain returned with the Bishop to Savary’s Wagon. After some words, Savary said he would not take six bits for his plates, [as] he thought more of his plates than his Wife and such like expressions. When the Captain said he would give Savary a dollar for his Wife, Savary agreed. The Captain offered it to him, [and] Savary said “give it to my Woman.” He did so, [and] she accepted it. The Captain then went for the Clerk to make out the writings. When they got to Savary’s Wagon, Savary said he would “not sign any paper [as] he considered he was an honorable man, his word was his bond, he did not repent of his bargain” and many similar expressions. The Captain then went to the Wagon, began conversing with Sister Savary, when brother Savary went up to him and said “you have no business talking with my woman.” Captain Allen replied “You have no Woman, you have sold her, I have bought her and shall claim her in time and thro’ all Eternity.” Savary then ordered Captain Allen away several times, became very abusive in his language to the Captain. For proof of this, call George B. Gardiner, Solomon Wixom, Thomas Bullock, Stephen Perry, and Jesse P. Harmon. (Thomas Bullock, Journal entry for October 25, 1846, in The Pioneer Camp of the Saints: The 1846 and 1847 Mormon Trail Journals of Thomas Bullock, ed. Will Bagley [Kingdom in the West: The Mormons and the American Frontier 1; Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997, 2022], 85-86, emphasis in bold added)