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March 29, 2024

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Life of Johannes Zollinger

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The vessel arrived at New York on July 8th, passing through quarantine and the custom officials. They left on the evening of July 9th for Albany, New York. They arrived there on the 10th, Niagara Falls on the 11th, over the St. Lawrence River and down through Canada to Chicago arriving there on the 13th of July. They came to Quincy on the 13th and crossed the Mississippi on the 14th and arrived at St. Joseph on the 16th of July. They went up town and stayed at a hotel. During the night, Dorothea sat up with a Brother Wintch to whom she was engaged. He was very ill. She fell asleep and someone entered the room and began riffling their clothes. When the mother awoke and jumped out of bed, the intruder made his get away. She went down and told the night clerk but he did not seem to care.

They left for Florence on the 18th, going by boat up the Missouri and arrived on the 20th. This was the outfitting place for immigrants who intended to go west. They stayed there three weeks, and a man and a boy died during this time.

They were busy getting ready to go west. The church agent had purchased a wagon for them and four yoke of oxen. They also bought two cows to take along, a stove, different kinds of tools, provisions for the journey, trunks and boxes to pack the things in that they had brought from Switzerland.

There were also five other wagons who were independent owning their own outfits, and they traveled together. There were 60 teams and wagons in the whole company. They broke camp on the 9th of August rather late in the season and were the last company to go west that year. The day before, Brother Wintch had died and was buried there. All who were able walked while the sick remained in the wagons.

At first, everything went quite well, but as they proceeded and were well on their way, feed got scarcer, the roads more dusty (in places, the dust was 8 to 10 inches deep), and the cattle began to lose flesh. One day as they were traveling along the dusty road, the team being driven by an Englishman just behind the Zollinger outfit was loaded quite heavy with merchandise. The Englishman's wife was sitting on a box with her feet out over the front end gate. She fell asleep and fell out in front of the wagon which ran over her, killing her. The team stopped, and they buried her and went on.

On the 7th of September, the mother of Brother Wintch, who had died the day before leaving camp, also passed onto a better world. A few days later, a child of Michlaus Jakobs died, and on the 28th of September, a son of Jakob Neser and on the 1st of October, a man from England passed away. At a grove of cottonwood trees, Ferdinand Zollinger and another man went to see what they could find. They saw something up in a tree wrapped in a buffalo robe and tied together with ropes. Ferdinand climbed the tree to see what was inside. When he untied the ropes, he discovered a dead Indian. He quickly descended the tree. The stink made him sick. The next morning, he was ill and had to remain in bed. He never walked a step until he got to the Salt Lake Valley.

This made five sick people to care for: Ferdinand and wife, Louisa, Mother, Dorothea and Elizabeth who were all down with the mountain fever, and the responsibility was upon Jacob. When evening would come, they would drive their teams in a circle to keep the cattle inside and also for better protection from the Indians. After unhitching the teams and taking care of them, he would pitch camp, get the bedding out, go to a neighbor's for help to carry the sick from the wagon to the tent. This he had to do all the way to the Valley. They hired a German woman to cook for them. Johannes was old, but he walked and drove the two cows all the way across the plains. He was 63 years old. In the morning after breakfast, he would hitch up the four yoke of oxen, then get the neighbors to help him carry the sick back into the wagon, and so it went day after day. When they arrived in the mountains, it snowed and got cold, so cold in fact, that some froze their feet and one man had to have his toes amputated. It was bad traveling, and they could not make many miles per day. On the 5th of October, a man named Losser died and a day or two later, a baby was born but died the same day. It belonged to a family named Bachofen. They got to Green River and the snow was gone. On the night of October 27th, Jacob failed to unyoke one pair of oxen. The next morning, they were gone and could not be found. Some thief had gotten away with them. This left them with three yoke of oxen for the remainder of the journey.

On the 30th of October, they arrived at the mouth of Emigration Canyon and many people came to see if their relatives were in the company. One man came all the way from St. George. On the 31st, they drove to the city and camped in Emigration Square.

Three of the party were able to get out of the wagon alone for the first time. The cattle were turned loose in a pasture to feed and rest but being late in the season, the feed was poor. After a week's stay, they decided to go to Cache Valley. Brother Jacob I. Naef had come down from there and brought an invitation from the Ballif family to come up to Cache Valley. They were acquainted with Elder Ballif as he was a missionary to Switzerland. They made slow progress up to the Valley, taking a whole week to make the trip, one of their oxen dying on the way.

The morning after their arrival, Sister Christina Theurer and Brother Ulrich Traber came to see them which made them feel good. They traded a yoke of oxen for a one-room house which was located where Leon C. Alder's home now is, and there the whole family lived the winter of 1862 and 63. It was a mild winter with very little snow so that the season of 1863 was a very dry one, and the people started to dig canals from Blacksmith Fork and Logan Rivers to get water to irrigate their land. Brother Serge Ballif would come over and look after their wants. By spring, the folks were all better. One spring morning, Elders J. U. Stucki and Bother Cassmann came and held a meeting and prayed with the folks. Jacob said he was seized with such power that tried to crush the life out of him, by exerting himself to the utmost and leaving the room, he was able to free himself from that power. At that time, he did not know what it was, but since then he has learned by experience that it was the power of the evil one.

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