Margaret Moxom's Blog: The RAF Fauld 'Secret' Hiroshima, 1944 - Posts Tagged "pioneering"

This tells the true dramatically exciting story of two separate families, travelling in the mid 19th century, to make the life-threatening journey from England to Utah, in America, to avoid persecution for their religion.
They board sailing boats, that take six weeks to cross the Atlantic, through storms and the subsequent sickness. Charles Dickens actually boards the 'Amazon' ship that Ann Munford is on and reports on his findings (true report).
They then join wagon trains, travelling, mostly by foot, trudging beside ox-drawn wagons, that are carrying their only possessions, supplies and equipment, walking over the 1,300 miles across the searing hot plains, hauling the wagons over numerous rivers, then up into the freezing mountains where no roads have been built, with the ever-present threat of losing their lives and wagons over the cliff edges. All the while their water and food is quickly depleting.
Many people did not make it, dying along the way, of starvation, dehydration and sickness and pure exhaustion. The ones who make it, start building towns in Utah. Ann Munford meets George Gunn in Parowan, Utah, and they marry but continue to clear land and build homes, until the threat of hostile Indian retaliation, from the Black Hawk wars, drives them back.
The history is factual, to a great extent, gleaned from family records. This is a true history of my own ancestors and the opening up of the West.