LaJean Purcell Carruth - Liverpool to Great Salt Lake: The 1851 Journal of Missionary George D. Watt

LaJean Purcell Carruth and Ronald G. Watt make mid-nineteenthcentury pioneers speak as if out of the dust, bringing us into contact with their hardships, humor, and faith.

John G. Turner, author of Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet

Carruth and Watt expand greatly our understanding of the nineteenth-century Mormon experience, especially the emigrant trek to Utah, and the theology of Orson Pratt. Scholars and general readers alike will appreciate the books significance and substance.

John Sillito, professor emeritus for libraries at Weber State University

A delight.... Watts penchant for observing both the unusual and the mundane... makes his journal a welcome addition to the migrant genre and an absolute pleasure to read.

W. Paul Reeve, author of Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness

Edited by LaJean Purcell Carruth and Ronald G. Watt

Transcription by LaJean Purcell Carruth

Introduction by Fred E. Woods

University of Nebraska Press | Lincoln

2022 by the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska

Cover designed by University of Nebraska Press; cover top: Three Master in Rough Seas, 1856, by Fitz Henry Lane (180465). Oil on canvas. Collection of the Cape Ann Museum, Gloucester MA. Gift of George O. and Jane Parker Stacy, 1948 (1289.1c). Cover bottom: (detail) America in the Making: Covered Wagons, 1939, by Newell Convers Wyeth (American, 18821945). Oil on hardboard. Gift of John Morrell and Company, Ottumwa, Iowa. In the permanent collection, University Museums, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa. UM83.15 Image 2021, University Museums.

Transcriptions of journal of George D. Watt, sermons by Orson Pratt, and quotes by John Taylor and Heber C. Kimball by Intellectual Reserve, Inc. Courtesy of the Church History Library of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Published with permission of Intellectual Reserve.

This material is neither made, provided, approved, nor endorsed by Intellectual Reserve, Inc. or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Any content or opinions expressed, implied, or included in or with the material are solely those of the owner and not those of Intellectual Reserve, Inc. or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Frontispiece: G. D. Watt, engraving by W. O. Geller. Courtesy of Church History Library.

All rights reserved

The University of Nebraska Press is part of a land-grant institution with campuses and programs on the past, present, and future homelands of the Pawnee, Ponca, Otoe-Missouria, Omaha, Dakota, Lakota, Kaw, Cheyenne, and Arapaho Peoples, as well as those of the relocated Ho-Chunk, Sac and Fox, and Iowa Peoples.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Watt, G. D. (George Darling), 18121881, author. | Carruth, LaJean Purcell, editor. | Watt, Ronald G., editor. | Woods, Fred E., writer of introduction.

Title: Liverpool to Great Salt Lake: the 1851 journal of missionary George D. Watt / edited by LaJean Purcell Carruth and Ronald G. Watt; transcription by LaJean Purcell Carruth; introduction by Fred E. Woods.

Description: Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, [2022] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021054544

ISBN 9781496229878 (hardback)

ISBN 9781496231680 (epub)

ISBN 9781496231697 (pdf)

Subjects: LCSH : Watt, G. D. (George Darling), 18121881Diaries. | Watt, G. D. (George Darling), 18121881Travel. | Mormon missionariesEnglandDiaries. | BISAC : HISTORY / United States / State & Local / West ( AK , CA , CO , HI , ID , MT , NV , UT , WY ) | RELIGION / Christianity / History | LCGFT : Diaries.

Classification: LCC BX 8695. W 38 A 3 2022 | DDC 289.3092 [B]dc23/eng/20220105

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021054544

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

To our children:

Amy, Nathan, and Celeste

Ronda, Mathew, Andrew, Gardner, April, and Kennan

Ronald G. Watt

Fred E. Woods

LaJean Purcell Carruth

Illustrations

Maps

Ronald G. Watt

George D. Watt wrote his shorthand journal during his travel from Liverpool, England, to the Salt Lake Valley, covering the period from January 28, 1851, to August 14, 1851. Unusual in its completeness, Watts journal recorded his experiences in all three segments of the journey: his account covers the ocean voyage on board the ship Ellen Maria, the journey up the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, and the land trek until they passed Chimney Rock, at which point he makes no further entries. The journal also includes his record of three sermons delivered by Orson Pratt to the company of Latter-day Saint emigrants on board the Ellen Maria and a draft of a letter to his sister and brother-in-law, Margaret and John Brandreth, describing his experiences.

George Darling Watt is my great-grandfather. He had a very difficult childhood. After his father abandoned the family, he lived much of his life on the streets of Manchester, because his stepfather also turned him out. His mother then placed him in the poor house. Watt left Britain in 1842 and traveled to Nauvoo, Illinois, then the headquarters of the Church. He returned to the British Isles in 1846, where he preached his newfound religion throughout the land.

Watt left England for Great Salt Lake City, Utah, where members of the Church had gathered, in 1851. It is at this point in his life that he began a journal, which he hoped would benefit others in their quest for that promised land. He carefully documented the ships journey across the great Atlantic Ocean and the steamboats trip up the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. He began to tell his readers about the plains, oxen, buffalo, rain and storms on the plains, fording rivers, and the countless details of traveling with a wagon train, until he quit writing three days before arriving at Fort Laramie. He never carried through on his desire to publish his writings for those travelers who would come after him. He did not transcribe this private but planned-to-be-public diary. It did not help anyone else in their journey. His journal remained unread for 150 years, until LaJean Purcell Carruth found it as she was reviewing his Pitman shorthand records. She brought it to me and said, Ron, I have found a journal by George D. Watt. Being the cynic I am at times, I did not believe that such a diary existed, until she began reading this writing that appeared to me to be hieroglyphics. Then I became a believer.

It seems to me that George Watt has followed me my entire life. He in a sense has stalked me. At first I had to write about why he left Mormonism to follow a strange, at least to me, doctrine of Spiritualism. I wrote an article on that, Sailing the Old Ship Zion: The Life of George D. Watt. I have published other articles about him, until all of these writings culminated in a book, The Mormon Passage of George D. Watt: First British Convert, Scribe for Zion. Every step of the way and after every publication, I would say, I am finished with him. Then I would find that I was not. This book,