Samuel Gould's Story

* * * * * *

Little is known about Samuel Jacob Gould’s early life.  Who his parents were is uncertain, but what is known is that he was born in 1778 in Connecticut during the middle of the American Revolution.  Although no documentation can be found, Samuel claimed that he enlisted in the War of 1812 and fought pirates off the Barbary Coast of Africa.  Around 1818, at the age of 34, Samuel married Sarah Childs (called Sally) who was born on May 4, 1798 in Medina, Orleans, New York.  Sally and Samuel raised a family of four boys and three girls:  Maria (b. July 13, 1819 in Stafford, Genesse, New York), John (b. around 1820 in New York), Harriet (b. 1826 in New York), Reuben (b. August 14, 1829 in Lockport, Orleans, New York) Sylvester G. (b. 1833 in Canada), and James B. (b. 1836 in Madison, Madison, New York).  In 1836, the Gould family moved to the Territory of Michigan, the home of Indians and still at that time comparatively unknown to white settlers.  They settled in Milan, Monroe county where three years later, on October 29, 1839, their youngest child, Jane Elizabeth (called Jennie), was born.

Samuel was an early convert to the Church of Latter Day Saints, also known as Mormons.  The earliest documentation of his involvement is in the Church records shows that on the 8^th day of June in 1844, Samuel was among the 89 members who met for the Pleasant Valley conference at Breed B. Searls’ house in Livingston County, Michigan.  On that day, he was also one of five men ordained an Elder by Wilford Woodruff, George A. Smith, and Zebedee Cotrin.  At the end of the month, on the 28^th of June, in Carthage, Illinois, Joseph and Hyrum Smith, Prophets of the Church, were murdered by a mob while in the jail awaiting trial for inciting a riot.  Brigham Young eventually emerged as the new leader of the Mormons.  Within the next two years, Samuel left his wife and children, and with his eldest son, John, joined the nearly 15,000 Mormons who were fleeing Nauvoo, Illinois westward towards the Missouri River.

After Mexican troops fired on American soldiers in Texas on the 25^th of April 1846, President James K. Polk declared war on Mexico on the 13^th of May.  At the same time, Brigham Young instructed Jesse C. Little to seek aid for the Mormon pioneers by asking that the Polk administration employ them to fortify and defend the West.  On the 2^nd of June, the president agreed to authorize the Mormons to raise a battalion of a few hundred men to serve in General Stephen W. Kearny’s Army of the West.  His orders were that they were to march to California, then still part of Mexico.  Both Samuel at 68 years old, the oldest member, and his son John, 26, were among the 500 men who volunteered.  They were assigned to Company C under Captain James Brown.  On the 16^th of July, the men were mustered into service at Council Bluffs, Iowa Territory.  Four days later, on the 20^th of July, they left on a 200-mile, ten-day march to Fort Leavenworth (Kansas) where the new recruits were equipped with smoothbore flint-lock muskets, a few cap-lock rifles for sharpshooting and hunting purposes, one hundred tents, and all the necessary equipment for the long journey.  Because the soldiers were allowed to wear civilian clothing, most donated their $42 clothing allowance to the Church general fund.  The money raised was used to purchase wagons, teams of oxen, and supplies for the Mormons move west.  On the 12^th of August, the Battalion set out for California for what would be the longest and most difficult infantry march in history. 

The Mormon Battalion marched south to the Arkansas River and into the high desert of New Mexico where they arrived in Santa Fe by the 12^th of October.  By then the Mexican forces in New Mexico retreated to Mexico without a fight and Kearny easily took control.  In Santa Fe, Kearny also learned that the Mexicans in California had surrendered without resistance to Commodore Robert F. Stockton at Monterey.  Then Kearny had Lieutenant Colonel Philip St. George Cooke assume command of the Battalion.  Aware of the rugged the trail between Santa Fe and California, Cooke decided that a second sick detachment, that included Samuel and John, should be sent to Fort Pueblo (Colorado) where there was a small Mormon community to spend the winter.  The remaining soldiers left Santa Fe for California a week later on the 19^th of October. 

The following spring, Brigham Young dispatched Amasa Lyman and a small party to travel from Winter Quarters to intercept the soldiers in the Sick Detachments at Fort Pueblo.  The soldiers were directed to join Brigham Young and the first Pioneer Company who had already left Winter Quarters for the move west.  Samuel and a small group the Battalion Advance Party were pursuing Tim Goodale and few other traders who had stolen horses from the Mormons when they caught up with Brigham Young and the Pioneer group of 142 men, 3 women and 2 children on Sunday the Fourth of July.

Among the men with Brigham Young’s company was Samuel Brannan who had returned from California.  Brannan left New York in February 1846 with 238 fellow Mormons to sail on the ship Brooklyn around the Cape Horn for California.  They arrived in San Francisco Bay to find that just days earlier the New York Volunteers of the Army of the West had already raised the flag of the United States.  Brannan’s company of Mormons settled in the village of Yerba Buena.  The next year he traveled east to bring Brigham Young news of California along with copies of his newspaper, the “California Star,” the first newspaper published in San Francisco.  Brannan reported that the Mormon Battalion had arrived in San Diego and some of the soldiers were now in the Pueblo de Los Angeles.  They had had a hard journey, but were in good health.  He also described the unfortunate ordeal of the Donner Party who had left Independence, Missouri the previous winter.  This group of Mormons had become stranded in a snowstorm in the Sierra Nevada and some were rescued by the few Americans who were already in California.

After three weeks more weeks of travel west, on July 24, 1847, Brigham Young entered the Salt Lake Valley and declared, “This is the right place.”  Samuel and John arrived the following day, with the rest of the Sick Detachments of the Mormon Battalion following four days later.  Within a week of their arrival in the valley, the pioneers plowed and planted eighty-four acres with potatoes, peas, beans, corn, oats, buckwheat, and other garden seeds.  Having learned the irrigation practices used in New Mexico, almost immediately about three acres of corn, beans and potatoes began to sprout.  Work then turned to building a stockade to protect the settlers.  Brannan described how by using adobe brick, he was able to build his printing office and put out the first edition of his newspaper within fourteen days.  A ten-acre lot was laid out for a fort where about 160 families would spend the winter.  Samuel Gould and James Dunn were appointed “lime burners” to crush and burn the lime in kiln to make plaster that would cover the adobe bricks.  Each 16 x 24 foot house in the square had two rooms.   The first house foundation was laid on the 10^th of August.  Mormons would continue to arrive in the Salt Lake Valley until the 2^nd of October in 1847. 

The Mormon Battalion’s year of duty was over on the 16^th of July, and to ensure that the members of the Sick Detachment were properly discharged and paid, six of the soldiers including Lysander Woodworth, under Captain James S. Brown, left on the 9^th of August with Brannan for Monterey, California.  On the 26^th of August, after just one month in the Salt Lake Valley, 107 men, including Samuel and John who were in “horse and mule train” were sent back to Winter Quarters.  After two long and difficult months of travel and with winter already setting in, the “Returning Pioneers” marched into Winter Quarters on the 31^st of October.  The streets of town were lined with people waiting to welcome them. 

When the winter was finally over and spring arrived, Samuel and John accompanied the three companies of Mormons that left for Salt Lake beginning on the 5th June of 1848.  The first company with 1220 emigrants to cross the plains was led by Brigham Young.  Heber C. Kimball’s company left two days later with 662 individuals.  By the 3^rd of July, Winter Quarters was nearly empty when 526 individuals left with Willard Richardson.  Young’s company arrived in the Salt Lake Valley on the 20^th of September, while Kimball’s reached Salt Lake on the 20^th of September.  When the last Richardson’s company arrived between the 10^th and 19^th of October, more than 2,400 individuals had migrated to the Salt Lake Valley.

On the 24^th of January, while Samuel and John were in Winter Quarters, gold was discovered on the American River at Coloma, California.  A brief report of James Marshall’s discovery appeared in a mid-March edition of the “California Star,” but at most people in San Francisco laughed at the story.  In May, with a bottle of gold dust in his hands, Brannan ran through the streets of the San Francisco, shouting “Gold! Gold from the American River!”  Samuel and John learned of the news as well.  Captain Brown had returned from California in December 1847 with the soldiers’ back pay in the form of Spanish doubloons probably in the denomination of 8-escudo.  When Samuel and John arrived back in Utah from Winter Quarter, they collected their pay.   Samuel turned 70 that summer, and with his pay in hand and instructions from Brigham Young, instead of heading for California, he and John left for Michigan with the mission of convincing his wife, Sally, and his other children to convert to Mormonism and move to Utah with them.

Samuel and John arrived back in Michigan after a nearly five-year absence.  Sally was now 50 years old.  Jennie, just 9, barely remembered her father.  James was 12, Sylvester 16, and Reuben 19.  The eldest child, Maria, now 29 years old, married to Samuel Youngs Denton in 1841, was the mother of two children:  Mary (b. 1842), and Harriet (b. 1846).  Her third daughter, Ellen, was born in 1848 just as Samuel arrived back in Michigan.  Harriet, now 23, and married to Henry (called Harry) Allen in 1841, was the mother of Nelson B. (b. 1842), Richard (b. 1844), and John (b. 1846).  Samuel and John stayed with the Dentons at their home in the outskirts of Ypsilanti, about ten miles from Ann Arbor, near present day Rawsonville. They shared their stories of adventure and hardships with the Mormon Battalion.  Samuel talked about Utah and their new home in the Great Salt Lake, and hoped to convince Sally and their family to return with him.  Word quickly spread that father and son had returned after their long absence. 

After gold was discovered in California and Brannan spread the word with the discovery in his California Star, all three Ann Arbor newspapers reported the discovery.  President Polk made official the discovery in his farewell address of December 5^th, but because few people had first hand experience in the west or  how to get there, they asked Samuel many questions.  “How far is it?  What equipment do we really need to get across the desert and the mountains? Do we know the trail to take when we get to Missouri?  What time of year is best to go? Were there Indians?”  Samuel placed an advertisement in the January 24, 1849 edition of the Ann Arbor Whig.  “HO FOR CALIFORNIA!” the headline read.  All who were interested in knowing how to get to California from someone who knew from actual observations of the country were invited to meet Samuel three days hence at Hawkin’s Tavern in Ypsilanti.

At 3 o’clock in the afternoon of Saturday the 27^th, Samuel with John at his side told the crowd that he would plan and direct the expedition all the way through.  Samuel them that he would plan and direct an expedition all the way through to California.  By taking his favorite route, San Francisco would be about 2,700 miles from Ann Arbor and averaging 25 miles a day could be reached in 108 days with no difficulty.  The route west would take them through White Pigeon, South Bend, Juliet, Ottawa, Monmouth, across the Mississippi at Burlington to Keosanque and Soap Creek, then across the Missouri at Council Bluffs to Pawnee Station, Grand Island, River Platt, Fort Laramie, over the Rocky Mountains at South Pass, and across the Green River and on to Fort Hall.  From here, the Gold Placers would be two or three hundred miles and it would be another four hundred to San Francisco.  On this route, Samuel described the ground as good for traveling that any gentleman could go through in a light buggy on a trot with no obstructions except a few spots in the South Pass.  Samuel offered to escort 15 to 100 men to California for a reasonable compensation to be paid in advance.  Each man must provide himself with two blankets, a horse, a rifle carrying balls as large as 40 per pound, a holster pistol, and $100 in his pocket for the end of the journey.   If required and before they started, he would provide ample security, and he promised faithful and skillful performance of his duty. 

Everyone at Hawkin’s Tavern listened to Samuel with awe as he described his two trips west with his son.  Many asked them questions.  Samuel planned to leave Ann Arbor on the 15^th of February.  Several men had already caught gold fever and were anxious to start out for the West immediately.  George Corselius, a printer, politician and bookseller, wanted to leave sooner and get there faster so he planned to leave immediately by going to New Orleans and taking a steamship to the isthmus to reach the Pacific Ocean.   Robert Davidson, a mason and contractor, needed more time because wanted to sell a house to raise funds.  His two nephews, DeWitt and James Downer, wanted to join their uncle.  David T. McCollum, a bookkeeper and conveyancer who transferred property titles, needed to sell some land before he would be prepared to go.  Dr. John S. Ormsby and Dr. Thomas Blackwood, both physicians, wanted to go to San Francisco, as did Edward Brown, Dr. Ormsby’s stepson, and Cyrus Hamilton, a University of Michigan student.  Ann Arbor founder, John Allen might be ready to go to California the following year.  But when everyone learned that after leaving Council Bluffs, Samuel expected the implicit obedience of each one to all his rules and requirements, all became suspicious.   They believed that Samuel was really looking for converts to join the Mormon Church.   Despite their enthusiasm, no one was willing to join Samuel on his expedition back to California.

Winters after Samuel and John left Michigan in 1844 had been mild in comparison to the “hard winter” they spent in 1842-43.  January and February 1849, however, were cold, with the temperature sometimes dipping below zero.  The frost was finally off the ground on the 12^th of March.  By the end of March, David T. McCollum was ready to leave Michigan and joined the Pioneer Line that left Independence, Missouri on the 9^th of May.  Robert Davidson and his two nephews followed Samuel’s route, leaving Kanesville in early May.  For whatever their reasons, neither Sally nor any of their other children would take the long journey back to Utah with them.   Samuel and John left Michigan without a gold exploring party bound for California. 

The return trip to Salt Lake took three months.  Samuel and John probably returned by the route he described to his audience at Hawkin’s Tavern.  They joined the Mormons at Kanesville to guide the new converts many of whom where emigrating from England who were headed for the Great Salt Lake.  In 1849, one quarter of the estimated 40,000 to 50,000 people, mostly men, who were headed for the California gold fields, passed through Salt Lake City.  

Brigham Young believed that gold mining was an occupation not fit for his church members.  He wanted instead to build up his “kingdom” in the Great Basin.  In September of 1849, however, he decided to pick two groups of men who would be sent on two independently organized companies to the gold fields using the southern route.  The very men he picked to go to the gold mines were the ones who did not want to go.  The first company of about twenty men captained by James M. Flake left Salt Lake City on the 11^th of October.  The second group of about thirty men captained by Simpson D. Huffaker left Salt Lake a month later on the 12^th of November with John in the company. 

At the same time as the two Gold Missions left off for California, Brigham Young made plans for a company to explore the valleys three hundred miles south and as far as the Gulf of California with a view to settlement and acquiring a seaport.  By November Brigham Young had secured the provisions for a mid-winter expedition and raised $238.50, the amount needed to finance Parley Pratt’s Southern Exploring Expedition as far as Las Vegas.  On the 23^rd of November, Samuel, now 71 years old, was one of the fifty men of who assembled at John Brown’s adobe house on his farm between Big and Little Cottonwood Creeks. 

The next day outfitted, provisioned, and organized, and in high spirits, Parley Pratt and men set out on a 526-mile journey to explore the Virgin River area and look for desirable locations for settlement.  From Fort Utah on the Provo River, they turned up Chalk Creek and crossed the mountains, reaching the one house in Sanpitch in the Sanpete valley on the 3^rd of December.   Continuing along the Sevier River, they camped with Ute Indian Chief Walker who gave them useful information about the country and the route.  The weather was bitterly cold that winter, yet they continued on their journey along the Spanish Trail where they faced the daunting task of crossing the snow-choked high country between the Tushar Mountains and the Markagnut Plateau.  After a month on the trail, they reached the Little Salt Lake Valley.  Realizing the oxen were too worn down to continue, the company split.  While Parley Pratt took twenty men over the rim of the Great Basin on horseback to explore the Virgin River country, the others remained with the wagons and oxen.  Edward Everett, Isaac Haight, Joseph Horn, and Samuel, explored the Parowan and Cedar Canyons.  On the 30^th of December, Samuel and Everett explored Center Creek, which heads on the heavily forested Markagunt Plateau, while Haight and Horne explored Parowan Creek.  The Indians in the area advised Pratt and his men that the country to the south of them, north of the Grand Canyon, was worthless, so they returned going through the Santa Clara River to Mountain Meadows.  They rejoined the party at Parowan where they shared a memorable feast and celebration. 

The men started for home on the 10^th of January as the storms were increasing and snow was getting deeper.  They were in trouble, though, as the oxen could no longer drag the wagons and their provisions were dangerously low.  On the 21^st of January, the decision was made to split the group into two groups.  Parley Pratt and half the men, including Nathan Tanner, most of whom had families, rushed ahead on the strongest horses to send back a rescue party from Fort Utah.  The wagon party left behind with Hail K. Gay, Sylvester Hewlett, Seth Tanner and Samuel, was snowbound for seven weeks.  On the 10^th of March and for the next three days, the men were confined by a violent storm.  Temperatures reached 30 degrees below zero, yet their days were spent shoveling snow, doubling teams and shuttling wagons off the mountain to what they called Port Necessity, a relatively snow-free campsite in the southwest corner of Round Valley. The old men, Christopher Williams, William Henrie and Samuel, stayed in camp melting snow for the cattle.  By the 24^th of March with the weather feeling warm and sultry, the party reached Pateatneat Creek.  Once again on a familiar road, the men were energized with the nearness of home.  Mornings were pleasant and green grass was two and three inches high.  The men pushed on sighting their first settlement, American Fork, after three and a half months, where they camped.  On the 28^th of March, the last of the men finally rolled into the Cottonwood settlement.  The trip was more arduous and rugged than they could have imagined, and despite all the obstacles and hardships, they completed their mission.

Cottonwood was the home of John Tanner, Nathan and Seth Tanner’s father, and Samuel’s old friend and colleague from Connecticut.  John Tanner had settled in Cottonwood with his large family.  Two of his sons, Myron and Albert, had served with the Mormon Battalion, with the former being part of the Sick Detachment with Samuel and the later continuing on to San Diego. While Nathan and Seth were with Parley Pratt’s Expedition, Myron stayed behind to help care for his father who suffering from an attack of rheumatism.  When he returned from Southern Utah, Seth found his father very ill and confined to his bed but alert.  On the 13^th of April, at the age of 71, John died.  Because there was no cemetery in Cottonwood yet, he was taken ten miles north to Salt Lake City for burial. 

A week later, around the 20^th of April, Myron and Seth Tanner joined Ephraim Hanks, another member of the Mormon Battalion who had recently returned from California.  He was now in charge his own company going to the California gold fields.  Also in this company was his brother Ebenezer Hanks, who was with the Sick Detachment, as well as Benjamin F. Stoddard, Ashel Thorne, Thomas Blackburn, and Henry Green.  Although little is known about the Ephraim Hanks Company, it is quite possible that Samuel was one of the members of this company bound for California. 

Two weeks later, a much larger company captained by William D. Huntington escorted Louisa Barnes Pratt and her sister Caroline Barnes Crosby, who were traveling by carriage, and others who were on their way to the Sandwich Islands and Polynesia.  Huntington’s company also included Ephraim’s brother Sidney Alvarus Hanks, Hail K. Gay and Sylvester Hewlett, and left Fort Utah on the 7^th of May,

To be continued.

Samuel Jacob Gould's FindAGrave Page