Swindlehursts emigrating
(This information has been extracted from the Our Families Roots website. The content has not been modified, the only change is to the order of words).
In1868 a gentleman by the name of Daniel D. McArthur departed from St George, Utah, leading a group of out-and-back teamsters to Benton, Wyoming. They left Salt Lake in mid-June, travelling east by way of Parley's Canyon, where they encountered a blinding spring blizzard. It also took them a full day to swim their herd of oxen across the Green River, which was swollen from the spring runoff. They reached the end-of-track terminus of Benton in July and waited about six weeks for a group of emigrants, most of whom had crossed the Atlantic on the steamship Colorado. It took the emigrants about a week to travel on the train from New York to the outfitting place. The emigrants arrived in Benton, where they met their teamsters on August 7 and left a week later. The company included 411 passengers and 61 wagons. Twenty-five of the wagons were loaded with goods destined for stores in Salt Lake, including the new Zion's Cooperative Mercantile Institution. They travelled in a north-westerly direction from Benton through Whiskey Gap and northward from there until they reached the Sweetwater River and joined the old emigrant road. They arrived in Salt Lake on September 2. Seven people, mostly young children, died en route.
Included in the party of emigrants were John (55) and Matilda Rothwell (38) Swindlehurst (presumably the parents) and Isabel Hannah (15), Sophia (13), Charlotte (11), Amelia (8), Edwin (4) and Thomas Wilford Swindlehurst (1).
Note 1: the record does not say if the seven who died included 1 or more of the Swindlehurst family.
Note 2: a Charlotte Swindlehurst married, on 26th April 1878, a John Andrew Smith in St George, Utah.
Note 3: At that time Benton Wyoming was the railhead of the Union Pacific railway. Subsequently the line was extended westward and Benton died and disappeared from history, as Rawlins became the rail centre. (See Wyoming Place Names by Mae Urbanek). This info courtesy of Curtis Greubel, Archives and Graphics Supervisor, Wyoming State Archives.