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INFORMATION OBTAINED FROM HISTORIANS OFFICE

Ann RIGBY WEBSTER, age 48, and her children, Mary Ann, age 16, Thomas, age 13, Joseph age 9, William, age 6, James, age 4 and Sarah, age 4, came across the plains in Captain Uriah Curtis company (of fifty) and arrived in the valley of the Great Salt Lake on October 1, 1852. The company was organized 24 June 1852 by Elder Jedediah M. Grant and left the Missouri River a few days later. (Names of the emigrants obtained from the roster of the company given in Journal History of December 31, 1852, p. 104

CHURCH EMIGRATION OF 1852

There were 22 companies of emigration in 1852 and also a perpetual Emigration Fund Company. The Websters came in the Sixteenth Company of that year. Following is taken from Emigration Records of 1852, Sixteenth Company, Captain Uriah Curtis.

Captain Uriah Curtis was a speaker at a conference held in Big Pigeon Tabernacle, Pottawattamie County, Iowa on April 7, 1852 on which occasion he urged Saints to follow council and migrate to the Rocky Mountains ‘where the light was’. In charge of a company of saints from Pottawattamie County numbering about 365, which had been organized by Elders Jedediah M. Grant and Ezra T. Benson on June 24, 1852, and left the Missouri River a few days later, arriving in Salt Lake City, October 1, 1852.

Margaret most probably crossed the plains in one of the companies in 1852 prior to the one her folks came in, that of Uriah Curtis. Her sister, Lydia WEBSTER BROOKS and family lived in St. Louis for a number of years, emigrating to the Great Salt Lake in 1856, in John Banks Ox-Team Company. The members of her family then consisted of James Simkins BROOKS, Jr. (husband) James S. BROOKS III, age 8, son of the first wife, Rebecca Franklin CRUMP who died in St. Louis; and Lydia’s children, Lydia W. BROOKS, age 4, Rachel BROOKs, age 2 and Milo Erastus BROOKS age 1. They arrived in Utah October 1, 1856