William Clayton’s Journal

William Clayton’s day-by-day journal of the exodus from Nauvoo and of the first pioneer company to the Valley of the Great Salt Lake. It opens on February 8, 1846, with Clayton, clerk of the camp and leader of its band, packing the Church’s goods as the Saints cross the Mississippi, and follows the camp through the rain and mud of Iowa to Garden Grove, Mount Pisgah and the Missouri, the raising of the battalion, his long fever, and Winter Quarters; on April 15, 1846, he notes that he “composed a new song—‘All is well.’” From April 1847 he travels with Brigham Young’s pioneer company up the Platte, past Chimney Rock and Fort Laramie and over South Pass into the valley, counting the miles with the “roadometer” fixed to a wagon wheel, putting up guide boards and recording the camp’s councils and sermons and its first weeks in the valley. He ends on October 21, 1847, home at Winter Quarters, having measured the whole road from the valley: 1,032 miles. Clayton narrates in his own voice; the foreword, the sketch of his life and the editor’s note are each read by another voice.

The title page reads “William Clayton’s Journal: A Daily Record of the Journey of the Original Company of ‘Mormon’ Pioneers from Nauvoo, Illinois, to the Valley of the Great Salt Lake. Published by the Clayton Family Association. Salt Lake City, Utah: The Deseret News, 1921,” and the copyright page “Copyright, 1921, by Lawrence Clayton, Trustee for the Clayton Family Association.” The frontispiece is a photograph of Clayton. The book opens with a foreword by Levi Edgar Young and a sketch of Clayton’s life by Victoria C. McCune. In the Editor’s Note Lawrence Clayton says the family association offered the book to the public, that it was prepared in haste for the anniversary of Clayton’s birth, July 17, and that he hoped a later edition would do the journal better justice.

The journal has no chapters: the 26 chapter divisions and their titles are ours, and the dated entries are read as printed. There are no entries for October and December 1846, and the printed note “[No pages from here until April.]” marks the gap from February 10 to April 8, 1847. A few plain printer’s slips (such as “Fort Bridget” for Fort Bridger) were corrected. Everything else is read as printed, in the language of 1846–47, including a sermon of Brigham Young’s and a roll of the pioneer company that use period terms for Black people, and period terms for Native Americans.

Text produced for Project Gutenberg by the Mormon Texts Project (volunteers Eric Heaps, Meridith Crowder, Ben Crowder, Tod Robbins, David Van Leeuwen, Lili DeForest, Jude Ogzewalla and Byron Clark), released March 2, 2014. The cover is the book’s own frontispiece, from the Internet Archive’s scan of the 1921 printing.