George and Fanny's Big Trip (Spilsbury 1842-1850)

[This began as a letter to Grandchildern]

Note to Grandkids: 

Some important things to know before you start to read the stories

These stories are about some of your ancestors. Except for Grandma Hyer they are all about people who died many years before you were born. You don’t know any of them, but they know you.

Like many of your other ancestors, these people all have received a special promise from Heavenly Father. That promise is that they will “have joy in their posterity. “ Those are words Heavenly Father uses to say that their children, their children’s children, their children’s children’s children and their children’s children’s children’s children and so on for many generations will make them happy.  That “posterity” that makes them so happy includes you. They may be in heaven, but they know you and they’re cheering for you here on earth.  So I thought you might want to know something about some of them.

George and Fanny’s big trip

We’ll start with George and Fanny Spilsbury. George and Fanny Spilsbury are the great grandparents of Grandma Hyer. Their son, Alma Platte Spilsbury is father of Grandma Hyer’s mother. (Sometime I’ll draw you a chart to help you see how you are connected to them.)

This is a picture of George and Fanny, but Fanny’s picture taken many years later when she was older than in this story.

This story starts on September 5, 1842 in England when George Spilsbury and Fanny Smith were married. How they came to hear the Gospel, be baptized and join the church and how they came to know each other and get married are very interesting stories, but they will have to wait for another time. For this story, we’ll start with them recently married, living in England and working hard to earn money so they can go to the United States to join other church members, who they called the “Saints,” in Nauvoo, Illinois.

Life in England at that time was very different than life today. Around the same time that George and Fanny were living in England Charles Dickens, a famous author, was writing stories, such as Scrooge and Oliver Twist, about life in London, England. You can tell from those stories that life in England could be very hard, and there were some very good people and some very bad people and a lot of people in between. George and Fanny were among the very good people, but like many they were poor.

Fanny came from a fairly wealthy family, but her father did not want her to be baptized and join the Church and made her leave their house after she was baptized. He would not help them. George’s family did not want him to join the Church either, but they were too poor to help them much anyway. So George and Fanny, a young newly married couple (Fanny was about 19 and George about 20), ridiculed and deserted by their family and friends for joining the Church, were on their own in Dickens’ England of the 1840s.

George was a skilled mason and bricklayer and by working hard was able to save enough money to buy them a ticket on a ship sailing for America. They joined a group of Saints going to America on a ship named the “Yorkshire.” They traveled to Liverpool (by the way, you may want to have a map handy to follow where they go) on the west coast of England to board the ship. Liverpool was a very busy port in those days. Here is a picture of what the Liverpool docks probably looked like when George and Fanny boarded the Yorkshire. You’ll see they had to take small rowboats out to the ship and then climb up the sides to get on board. The ships look very different without all their sails. On September 8, 1842 George and Fanny set sail from Liverpool on the Yorkshire for the United States.

This is a picture of the ship Yorkshire. Although the name Yorkshire is an English name, the ship was actually built in America and was very fast for this type of ship.  Many Saints came to America on old, slow, leaky and sometimes dangerous ships, but George and Fanny were on a good, fast ship. Its destination was New Orleans on the Mississippi River.

The painting of the Yorkshire is realistic. The Atlantic ocean can have big waves that cause the ship to toss and turn. While they usually don’t tip over, it easy to see how it could be scary at times (and also make you sea sick) and you had to be very careful not to slide overboard.

On these sailing ships the cargo was put in the bottom, called the “hold,” and the captain and officers stayed in cabins on the main deck on top. George and Fanny would have stayed with the other passengers in an area in between called the “’tween decks” just below the main deck and above the cargo holds. This is a picture of what the ‘tween decks on their ship likely looked like. You’ll see that it is very crowded. There were around 150 passengers or so on their ship.  In storms everyone had to stay in this area because it would be too dangerous to be on deck. Think of what it would be like if very many of those people got sea sick at the same time in that crowded area while the ship was rocking and bouncing around in the waves.

Fanny and George, however, were lucky to be on a ship with other church members. The Mormon groups on these ships were organized to take care of each other (most other passenger groups were not that way) and had regular prayers and church services. They also were careful to keep their areas clean and neat. Because of that not as many of them got sick on voyages as did other passenger groups. This is a picture of the Saints having church services on the ‘tween deck.

Fanny and George liked to sleep out under the sky on the top of the main deck, probably because it was hot and stuffy below deck. One night when the ship was in the Gulf of Mexico and they were sleeping on deck there was a tornado at around 2 in the morning with winds so strong that they blew over the main mast  (imagine what the waves must have been like) bringing down the sails and rigging (ropes) as well. They had been sleeping near that mast and it just barely missed them. They were able to cling on to the ship and stay on board while the waves washed over the deck. Despite the storm and the broken mast the ship was able to make its way to New Orleans and the Mississippi River landing on May 10, 1843.

Upon arrival the ship’s captain has to show the port authorities a ship’s “manifest” listing all the passengers on board. This is a copy of part of the manifest that the captain gave to the New Orleans port. You’ll see the names of George and Fanny Spilsbury (written in cursive, so it may be hard for you to read), and you’ll see that George is 20 and Fanny is 19 years old and that George is listed as a bricklayer. (hint: they are the first two entries 14 and 15)

While they were happy to be off the ship and in America, New Orleans is a long way from Nauvoo and they had no money to buy a ticket on a riverboat up the Mississippi River. George said this was a very sad time for them, especially for Fanny. They were destitute. They were in a strange land and had no money or possessions other than the clothes they were wearing. Fortunately George found another man, Thomas Bullock, who was also going to Nauvoo and who could loan them enough money for a ticket on a riverboat. To show that he was sincere and would pay back the loan, George told Brother Bullock he could have his shirt if he didn’t pay him back, since George didn’t have anything else to offer. Brother Bullock loaned them the money and George was later able to pay him back (and keep his shirt).

This is a picture of the type of boat George and Fanny would have taken up the Mississippi River, past St. Louis, and all the way to Nauvoo, Illinois.

They arrived in Nauvoo on May 31, 1843, and on that same day George and Fanny first met and talked with the Prophet Joseph Smith. On their first Sunday in Nauvoo they went to a meeting, arriving early to get good seats, and for the first time saw and heard the Prophet Joseph Smith preach.  Years later George would still talk of this experience of meeting the Prophet and listening to him teach the gospel. In George’s words, “all my troubles and privations of leaving my father and mother, brothers and sisters and my native land seemed nothing compared to the joy of my experience when I first saw and heard him, the Prophet Joseph Smith, preach.”

At that time church members didn’t meet in a church building, but sat on benches outside and listened to the church leaders. This is a picture of a place in Nauvoo where George and Fanny may have listened to the Prophet Joseph and others speak.

This is a painting of the Prophet Joseph teaching church members in Nauvoo. George and Fanny would have been like some of those young couples in the painting sitting on the benches listening to the Prophet.

This is a picture of some buildings in Nauvoo. You’ll see that they are made of brick. A lot of other buildings and homes, such as Brigham Young’s house, were also made of brick. So George, as a skilled bricklayer, was soon able to find work. Fanny sewed things (and she may have been pretty good at it, since her father was a tailor).

Since he was an experienced mason, George also worked on building the temple in Nauvoo. Here is a drawing of men like George building the temple. 

George and Fanny saw this temple completed and received their endowments in the temple from Brigham Young on January 18, 1846. George and Fanny also received patriarchal blessings from Hyrum Smith, the Prophet Joseph’s brother. Mary Fielding Smith, Hyrum’s wife and the mother of Joseph F. Smith, was the scribe. 

While living in Nauvoo two baby girls were born to George and Fanny. Sadly, both died. Matilda was born on August 31, 1844, but died a month later on September 24, 1844.  Frances Selina was born on July 10, 1846, but died two weeks later on July 25, 1846. This was a very sad time for George and Fanny.

George and Fanny were in Nauvoo when the prophet was martyred in the Carthage jail and during the persecution that followed. 

In 1846 most of the Saints began leaving Nauvoo to start the first part of the long journey west to the Salt Lake Valley in Utah. George and Fanny did not have enough money to buy a wagon, oxen, food and the other things you need to travel west. So instead they went to St Louis where George was able to find work as a bricklayer.

This is a picture of St. Louis around that time. You can see that it was a big and busy city for boats on the Mississippi River

While they were living in St. Louis, a daughter, Clarinda, was born on September 10, 1847. In the late 1840s a cholera epidemic struck St. Louis. George was fine, but Fanny became very sick and nearly died, but she survived. Their little and nearly two year old daughter Clarinda, however, did not and died of cholera on August 9, 1849. Another daughter, Sarah died at birth (still born) on August 3, 1849. This was another very sad time for George and Fanny. Fanny had given birth to four babies, and they all had died.

By 1850 George had made enough money to buy a wagon, oxen and all the other things you need for the wagon trip west to the Salt Lake Valley. They joined other saints in Bishop Edward Hunter’s Company and left St. Joseph, Missouri, a town just west of St. Louis, for the Salt Lake Valley on July 3, 1850. While out on the prairie Fanny gave birth on August 5, 1850 to a healthy baby boy. This was a very happy moment for George and Fanny.

Here is a picture of what their wagon may have looked liked, but there are two things wrong with this picture, if it were of George and Fanny. Fanny would have been sitting in the wagon alone holding a baby. Her other children had died and so there would not have been a little boy also sitting on wagon. In the picture a man on a horse is riding along side the wagon. George did not ride a horse on the trip, but like most pioneers walked along side the wagon and the oxen.  (Usually oxen don’t walk very fast, about the same speed that we walk.) Their wagon would have been pulled by a team of oxen just like the wagon in the picture. George and Fanny also had some cows and other oxen following along just like in the picture.

For part of the trail the wagon train traveled along the Platte River. Here’s a picture of a pioneer wagon train like George and Fanny’s traveling along the Platte River.

After the baby’s birth they traveled for several days away from the Platte River and without water.  They and their oxen were very thirsty because it was hot and they had had no water for several days. The trail then took them back near the river.  Fanny was riding in the wagon holding the baby with George walking along side. The oxen pulling the wagon, being very thirsty and smelling the water, suddenly took off running down the riverbank to the river.  The oxen stopped at the river to drink, but the wagon did not, tumbling into the river with Fanny and the baby, who was only eight days old. 

George and the other men jumped in and pulled Fanny from underneath the overturned wagon, but the baby was not in her arms.  With Fanny crying “Save my baby, save my baby!” the men jumped back in the river searching for the baby but couldn’t find him. 

Edward Hunter, who was the leader of the wagon train, was walking up and down the bank looking for the baby when he saw something red caught against a log in the river.  It was the baby wrapped in a red blanket.  Shouting, “There he is! There he is!” Hunter waded out and grabbed the baby.  As he carried the baby out of the river, he quietly announced to those waiting on the bank “His heart is still beating.”  So they decided to give the baby a priesthood blessing. Before giving the blessing they realized the baby had never been given a name. Pioneers gave babies a name and blessing just like we do now in church, but they also did it out on the plains. So along with a blessing for health they took the opportunity to bless the baby with a name, Alma, after George’s favorite Book of Mormon prophet, Platte, after the river that nearly did him in, and of course Spilsbury. That is how my great grandfather got his name Alma Platte Spilsbury. They held him up by his feet and water drained out of his lungs and he was fine. Alma Platte will go on to live a long and full live with lots of stories we’ll get to at another time.

This is a picture of Alma Platte Spilsbury, many years later when he was all grown up.

The pioneers pulled their wagons into a circle for their camps at night. Here’s a painting of some pioneers like George and Fanny camping. I think that night, after the rescue in the Platte River, George and Fanny prayed and thanked the Lord for saving Fanny and the little 8 day old baby Alma Platte.

One of the hardest parts of the journey to Salt Lake was the last few miles, because the wagons had to go over the steep Wasatch mountains just east of Salt Lake. These are pictures of pioneer wagons going up and then down the mountains to Salt Lake at a place not very far our house in Park City, Utah, and this is what George and Fanny had to do too. They had to all help push each other’s wagons up the steep parts and then use ropes and mules to hold the wagons going down so they didn’t roll out of control and crash at the bottom.

George and Fanny arrived with their wagon train in the Salt Lake valley on October 3, 1850. This is what Salt Lake looks like now.

But when George and Fanny arrived it looked nothing like that, but more like this.

For the first few years, George and Fanny settled in Salt Lake. We don’t know what their house looked like, but it may have been a small cabin like this one.

It may have been rough and not very nice on the outside and small and crowded on the inside, but I think it was neat and tidy inside and out and just big enough for George, Fanny and baby Alma Platte.

In the Salt Lake Valley the story of George and Fanny and baby Alma Platte is just beginning. George and Fanny and Alma Platte will see wars and peace, missions, more temples and great spiritual blessings and great hardships and disappointments, new settlements in beautiful but harsh frontier country, more births and unfortunately more deaths, but all that is for another time.

This is where our story of George and Fanny’s big trip ends - with Fanny and George and their baby Alma Platte happy in their cozy cabin in the Salt Lake Valley, grateful for the blessing of the restored gospel and, after all their travels from far off England, for finally being there safely in Zion with the Saints.