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

This is just an idea for a book at the moment. I haven't written a single sentence yet but have been doing tons of research. This idea started from looing into my family tree and I found a fascinating family, who got themselves all the way from Norfolk to Utah, America in the 1860s, where they helped establish the town of Parowan. George Morphew Munford, Ann Gunn's brother, actually had a reservoir commemorated to him on his death- the Munford Reservoir.

I want to show their journey, through thick and thin, through the freezing winter with people dying and the horrendous hardships, travelling over the mountains and plains in their covered wagons.

Actually, I've just found that Charles Dickens may well have been on the same ship that Ann Gunn sailed over on and I have his report of the journey, noting the number of Mormans, escaping persecution in England, to set up in Utah.

Ann met and married while there and produced numerous offspring, so I wish to show their romance.

So, do you think it's a good idea?

I have a bit of a query. I have found loads of information about the family on Family Search, and their journey to Utah, including 8-page documents on three people. I have tried to contact the producers of these documents, having found them on Facebook, but have had no reply. However, I would like to know if I can I use the information in these documents as long as I acknowledge the writers in my book?

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.