Written by Daniel Leigh Walters
(1843 - 1917)

Submitted by Karen Heckmann

History of Daniel Leigh Walters

I was born in Llanelly, South Wales, February 15, 1843. My father’s family including my father, Walter Walters was born there. Sarah Leigh Walters, [my] mother and the following children, Mary, Ann, Sarah, William, Margaret, Haanah, Daniel, and Elizabeth, all except William set sail from England, February 4, 1854 and landed at New Orleans about six weeks later march 18, 1854.

We traveled by steamboat to St. Louis, Missouri. A short time later we sent to Illinois, and stayed there two or three weeks with my sister. Leaving there we journeyed to Kansas, where we lived for a short time. Finally we moved out across the river to the praire to await the coming of the teams to take us across the plains. The trip was quite uneventful to me as I was only 10 years old at the time.

We arrived at Salt Lake City, October 5th, 1854. My uncle Alexander Wright met us and took us to his home, a place later known as Wandemere. After a short stay, the family [except me] moved to Brigham City, Utah. I lived with my uncle Alexander all winter. In the spring of 1855, my mother came for me and took me home. My mother was a strong woman, and we walked sixty-five miles to Brigham City. It took us four days to make the trip.

My first job on arriving home was to drive two yoke of oxen, breaking new land for spring planting. The crops looked well until August when the grasshoppers came and took all of them. The years of 1855 and 56 were the hardest in the history of the country since it was settled by the white people. How we lived through it would be hard to tell. Our main food was bran bread. We ate anything we could get. The cattle were so poor and starved they would freeze while standing. We had no team, so we had to carry on our backs all the wood we burned that winter. And the house we lived in my father built with willows and plastered with mud. For a door we used a quilt and for windows some thin white cloth.

I was only 11 years old at the time and as my Brother, William, had stayed in the old country, all the hard work fell on the shoulders of the girls. Along toward spring, when the hills began to get bare we would sharpen sticks and go out and dig segoes for breakfast and dinner. Then go to bed hungry. Henry Thomas had married my sister, Margaret, in the autumn of 1855. They owned a cow, and it was our task every day to go to the hills and cut dry grass and carry it home to keep her from starving. Nearly all the stock died before spring came. Those that did not die were so thin and weak that no work could be done until the grass grew and the cattle had time to gain strength.

Planting that year was late. During the winter of 1855, Henry Thomas and I pulled a bushel of wheat on a hand sled from Brigham City to Willard. We were able to get it chopped at a mill owned by Mallary. We reached home late that night and had a great feast. Sometime later father drove a team of oxen and took wheat to the mill that we might have bread to eat.

[I] remember, it was bran bread and that [was] pretty rough to use all the time. During the journey we had nothing to eat. On the way home we became very hungry. About one mile north of Willard we came to a home owned by the Bankheads. My father said, “I have never begged in my life, but I can stand it no longer.” He went to the door and asked the lady for a piece of bread. Mrs. Bankhead gave him a big loaf. Neither sister Bankhead or myself have forgotten the incident. We have talked about it many times since we have lived neighbors in Wellesville, Utah, for nearly fifty years. I have told her many times that she is always welcome in our home, and I am glad she makes herself so.

We managed somehow to live through those hard times. Many times we had nothing to eat except roots. In the spring of 1856 my father went to work for Lorenzo Snow, in his garden. Father was an excellent gardener and made a beautiful place for him. We were getting along quite well as Mr. Snow would share with us what little he had. I lived with the Snow’s all that summer and tended cows and sheep. It was necessary for every family to have some sheep as clothing had to be made from the wool and mostly by hand. Everyone raised good crops during the summer of 1856-57 and we had more to live on. During the summer of 1857, word came that an army was coming to kill us off. The people were very much excited and got out all their old guns and cleaned them up. They said, “If we must use them, we will give them the best we have.” I was too young to stand guard in the canyon {Echo}, but most of my companions went and stayed all winter. When spring came, word was received that we must move south. Just where we did not know. Most of the people were very hard pressed for means to move with. However, a few had no trouble. It was pretty hard to pick up and leave home to go—nobody knows where. But we did go and leave nearly everything behind. I went to Salt Lake City, to my uncle Alexander’s home. When I reached there he was getting ready to move south too. We loaded two wagons with household goods, flour and such things and pulled away. My uncle drove the horse team and I drove the yoke of oxen. After two days of hard driving we reached Spanish Fork. We stayed with a lady named White, who had crossed the plains with us four years before. We remained there and rested two days. On the third day we started back to get another load. We made two trips. When we got back for the second load my father, mother and younger sister, Elizabeth had arrived at my uncles. How they got there I never found out. But everyone was helping everyone else. So we were helped along. At this time John Owen came with twenty-five teams from Iron County to help move the people south. The journey was about three hundred miles and took three weeks. John Owen had married my oldest sister, Mary, the year before we moved. At Cedar City during the summer of 1856 Mr. Owen and I hauled coal for the iron works. Iron making soon failed however.