Tuesday, February 10, 2009

From Brampton to Parowan

I know that people who research family and Mormon history are keenly interested in emigration details, so I've posted the following part of the Davenports' story:

Thomas and Sarah moved with their children to the United States in November of 1849. They all presumably left from Liverpool on November 10, 1849 and arrived in New Orleans on December 24th, 1849. They traveled in the 45th company, aboard the Zetland, under the presidency of Elder Samuel H. Hawkins.

The Davenport family history recounts his trip up the Mississippi by transcribing Thomas's entries in his diary. The family went to St. Louis and then on to Council Bluffs, Iowa, arriving there on May 9th, 1850. They eventually moved to a farm in the Key Creek Branch where they spent about a year while they prepared to travel to Utah.

The Church immigration records say (according to family history) that the family left on June 20th, 1852, for Big Pigeon where they joined the 16th company led by Captain Uriah Curtis. They arrived in Salt Lake City on October 8th, 1852, and left for the Iron Mission pretty quickly thereafter, since they arrived in Parowan a few weeks later on November 4. They went south because community leaders had requested a potter from the Church's leaders.

For the purposes of our archaeological research, this part of the Davenports' story is interesting because there is no indication that Thomas and Sarah spent any time making pottery in Iowa or anywhere else in the United States. They did not have time to learn much about potting while traveling or living on the Mississippi River. Their potting skills brought them from Brampton to Parowan.

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