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MEMOIRS OF MY GREAT-GREAT GRANDMOTHER,
ELEANOR HOWARD (THOMAS) BRITTAIN KNOWLTON
November 1834 – August 1908

Passing through Utah in a long wagon train. Ellen arms herself and vows to fight if trouble occurs. Another wagon train massacred, Ellen says the Mormons did it. They enter Nevada territory. An attack at the Humboldt River. Bullet molds and hot lead.

I knew that I had to stay, let the consequences be what they would. I climbed up into the provision wagon, put the children in it and got my old Yager rifle and a shot gun and made up my mind to fight if I had to. I stayed there until late afternoon without hearing or seeing anything. Finally I got out my field glasses and looked again and still could seen nothing. The third time, however, I saw a train of ponies and the riders were dressed like Indians or traders. There was a lot of sage brush near our camp so I got my baby in my lap and the other child on my back and walked in a bending position until I reached a thick bunch of sage, put the children under it and told the eldest one to keep her sister quiet, for I was going back to the wagon and keep whoever it turned out to be from taking our food. I also told her if I was killed or hurt for her to stay hidden until her father came and that he would be whistling. I then gave them some food and went back to the wagon.

I looked again and saw one man alone who seemed to be making his way toward my wagon. I made up my mind not to run but to die at my post.

He came nearer and nearer and finally pulled off his hat and waved it and then I saw that he was an emigrant. He came up to me and said quickly that he had seen me hide the children. He said the men on the ponies were men who had been to California and were going back to the states and that he was one of Dr. Wolf’s men and had gone ahead of the train to look for a camping place. He knew who I was so I went and got the children. When the rest of the men came up he told them and told them who I was and that I had been alone all day. The men doffed their hats and cheered me. My brother and the men found all the stock and later when Mr. Brittain and Dr. Wolf came the doctor said that he did not believe there was another woman crossing the plains that would have stayed as I did all alone, with my two children. Of course I might not have done it either but that I knew it was my own stubbornness that had caused it.

We joined Wolf’s train and the first day of our journey onward we came to Holoway’s grave where he, his child and five men were buried in a square hole in the middle of the road. His wife’s long red hair was scattered all around. She had crawled away after the Indians had left her for dead and a train came along and picked her up and took her to southern California. We had not traveled but a few days when we heard of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, which was Captain Turner’s train, which we had just left. I greatly mourned their untimely and dreadful end but was glad that I had followed my inner guide who had prompted me to leave them.

I had a cousin, a MR. WELCH and his wife and daughter from Kentucky in that train. The train was made up from different states and I will say from the best people. Welch and his family and Captain Turner escaped as they were ahead of the train in search of grass. The Captain was shot through his knee. I will tell you more of this massacre later but will say now it was the Mormons who did it.

Now we are un Utah territory, traveling slowly as all long trains must do. I still walked when my children were sleeping and one day when the scenery seemed nicer than usual I started out. I did not ask the driver to stop for me to get off the wagon but stepped down on the tongue. My feet slipped and I fell in front of the wheels and they passed over my arms. I screamed and the team which was behind stopped immediately. The driver picked me up and laid me in the wagon. I was in great misery. Dr. Wolf and my husband were ahead on the lookout for grass and they were sent for to come back but thinking it was a joke about my accident and as it was near camping time they played cards until we drove up to the place where they had decided to camp. I was always one of the first to get out but this time I could move neither arm and when my husband did not see me he came to the wagon and asked what was the matter with me. I would not answer him so he went for Dr. Wolf who said, “Is it so that your arms are broken?” I said, “Yes, and this is a nice time for you and Mr. Brittain to come and ask me about it.” He got me out of the wagon and examined my arms which were not broken but so badly bruised that I could not use them for several days. Both of them begged my pardon.

We are now in Nevada territory and have traveled for several days without any trouble. We tried the men who had attempted to steal our stock and kept them with us as they gave bonds for good behavior, and did behave well after that time. The rest of the men were not allowed to mention the matter to them. HORACE CHALMERS was the man who tried to escape and he had given me his clothes to keep. When he took them from the wagon he had taken a bundle of the children’s clothes instead and he felt very ashamed. I knew that some of our men were in constant fear of the Indians so when Chalmers asked me to go his security I was sorry for him and did so. We expected to have trouble any time.

We were on the Humboldt River a few days after that and were getting ready to make an early start. The willows were very thick on the river and the men had driven all the loose stock up and the oxen were hitched. All at once an ox fell dead with an arrow in it and an Indian was seen to jump in the river. Dr. Wolf called for the men to get ready for a fight and the women began screaming for the men not to go. Dr. Wolf asked me if I was going to let Mr. Brittain go and I said, “Yes, if he does not need not to come back to my wagon.”

We were having quite a lively time and soon some called out for ammunition so I got out of the wagon with my tin ladle bullet molds and lead. You would have laughed to see me making bullets. They were not very nice but would have served to bring down and Indian or two, if there had been any. Well, the battle was over without the loss of any of our men. They put poison in the ox that was shot which I thought was very inhuman for they knew the Indians were starving. It was the emigrants doing such things which caused the Indians to commit more and more crimes, I am sure.

Footnote: The Mountain Meadows massacre occurred on Friday, September 11, 1857 in Mountain Meadows, Utah, several miles south of Enterprise in Washington County along the portion of the Old Spanish Trail that became the overland wagon road to California. Mormon militia and some Paiutes killed an entire wagon train of Arkansas farming families known as the Baker/Fancher party, traveling from Arkansas to California. Around 120 unarmed men, women and children were killed. Seventeen younger children (none older than six) were spared. Source: wikipedia.org.

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