John Harris Greer’s father, Thomas Lacy Greer, was 28 when he travelled to the Valley of the
Great Salt Lake. He came with his parents, Nathaniel Hunt and Nancy Ann Terry
Roberts Greer, and many other family members in the Seth Blair/Edward Stevenson
Company of 1855. They had recently
arrived at the outfitting post at Mormon Grove, Kansas, (near Atchison) with a
large group of fellow converts from Texas. They departed from there on 15 June
and arrived between 10-13 September. A third of this company died of cholera
enroute, including Thomas’ father.
Catherine Ellen Camp,
Harris’ mother, travelled as a child at the age of twelve in the Shadrach
Roundy Company of 1850. They departed Council Bluffs, Iowa, on 22 June and
arrived between 10-19 September. She travelled in style with her family,
comprised of her father, Williams W. Camp, her mother, Diannah Greer Camp, and
siblings John (age 16), Harriet (age 8), Emma (age 6), Richard (age 3), and
Margaret (age 1). They also brought two slaves with them, Dan and Charlotte. Little
Emma died after less than a week on the trail in a cholera epidemic that swept
the company.
It is not known which company Orpha Elzetta Nicoll’s father,
Alexander Nicoll, travelled with to
the Valley of the Great Salt Lake, but it is known that he came before 1850
because he is listed on the Utah Census for that year with his brothers John
and William as well as his stepbrother Hugh Lisonbee. His father, Peter Nicoll,
went to California with the Gold Rush and died in a mine there. His mother,
Margaret McPhail Nicoll, had died a few years earlier in Keokuk, Iowa.
Orpha’s mother, Sabina
Ann Adams, was also twelve when she travelled to Utah in the Samuel
Gully/Orson Spencer Company of 1849, which left from Kanesville (Council
Bluffs), Iowa, on 28 May and arrived between 22-25 September. With her were her
parents, Arza M. Adams and Sabina Clark Adams, and her siblings Nathan (age
17), Joshua (age 15), Nancy (age 7), Theothan (age 4), and Joseph Smith (age
2). Another sibling was born just about a month after they arrived.
