Pioneers In Their Own Way

July 24th is a state holiday in Utah. Most business, except for banks and the federal agencies close shop for the day, so that residents can celebrate the Mormon Pioneers entering the Salt Lake Valley. Only the wagon company of Brigham Young entered the valley on July 24th. A few months, another group entered the valley and in the coming years, other companies followed. Some of the companies consisted of handcarts. Most of my ancestors came west with pioneers the traditional, but two of pioneering ancestors came a less traditional way.

Benjamin Jackson left England in 1849. He boarded a ship and wasn't heard until the late 1860's. By then, his wife had given up and decided he was dead, so she married another man. So when Benjamin Jackson found his way to Nephi, he told the story of what happened after he left England. Benjamin crossed the Atlantic Ocean successfully, but while crossing the plain, he joined a group of Forty-Niners and headed to California to search for gold. Maybe he thought it would be a quick way to bring him family to America. Benjamin never wrote his family, probably because he couldn't read and he would have to pay someone to write the letter. Benjamin in his later years moved to Salt Lake City to live with his daughter, Elizabeth. He is buried in the Salt Lake City Cemetery, along with John Taylor, a former president of the LDS Church and other famous Mormons.

Elihu Kisor Ball was living in Russell, Virginia when he joined the LDS Church. On April 15, 1878, Elihu left his native Virginia with a nephew,Balford after a sorrowful farewell for Utah. They traveled first by horseback for the first 30 miles and then walked to Pikeville, Kentucky. Elihu and Balford bought a small flatboat sailed down the Big Sandy River to Louisa, West Virginia to visit with relatives. It was here that Balford got home sick and returned to Virginia. It was the last Elihu saw his nephew. On May 1st, Elihu boarded a streamboat and sailed on the Big Sandy River to Cincinnati, Ohio where he boarded the train to Salt Lake City, Utah. He stayed in Salt Lake until 1880 when he was sent by Brigham Young to help settle the San Luis Valley in southern Colorado.