Sunday, May 7, 2017

GREAT GREAT GRANDPARENTS
GEORGE CORRY AND MARGARET CLIMIE
as Recorded in the Journal of Robert Gardner

A few years ago, I came across the journal of Robert Gardner online and discovered that our great great grandfather, George Corry (Jr.) and his family were in the same group as Robert Gardner from the time they joined the Church in Canada (about 1844) until they arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847.  Sadly, there is no journal from our George Corry (let this be a lesson to us to write down our lives) but since their experiences are similar, we can learn quite a bit about how our ancestors lived during the period from joining the church to arriving in the Salt Lake Valley from this journal of Robert Gardner.  I have extracted a few paragraphs from Robert Gardner’s journal.
The whole thing is online at:  
The brief history of George Corry and Margaret Climie is in the Corry Book and also here on our Corry Family History Blog: 

From the Gardner Journal:
“My father emigrated to Canada in the year 1821.  He located in the backwoods of Canada in the Township of Dalhousie, Upper Canada.  This was a very poor part of the country consisting of rocky ridges covered with heavy timber mostly hemlock, pine, cedar and some hardwood. Some swamps and mud lakes, and here and there small patch of land that would do to cultivate, after cutting and burning the heavy timber then there was a kind of a thistle that came up among the grain which compelled us to reap it with gloves or mittens on our hands, cradles, reapers, and thrashing machines was not in fashion in that country in those day. And it was hard, cold country to live in but we lived in it about twelve years. Here I lost my education, or rather never got it. As the people was poor and in such a scattered condition they could not have school. When after a while we got a school I was grown and father needed my work on the farm as I was the youngest and the only one at home, so six weeks was all the time I ever went to school when I started I was spelling in two letter words and when I quit I was a fair reader in the Testament and the best speller in school but there I had to stop which has been the lament of my life what little I have learned since I have had to pick up the best I could.  Robert’s Uncle Archibald Gardner was tired of the poor country and started west in search of a better country which he found about 500 miles of in the township of Warwick, Canada West, near the lower end of Lake Huron. My father, William, and our family followed Uncle Archibald there. 
Great great Grandfather George Corry with his parents (George Corry and Margaret Cold), brothers (Isaac, Thomas and Henry) and one sister (Charlotte) immigrated from London, England, in about 1817 and settled in Bathurst which is about 33 miles from the above mentioned Dalhousie.  The description of the land for them is similar to what is stated above.  So eventually George, his parents and brothers Thomas and Henry left that area and traveled west to Plympton, Lambton County and settled there.  (Their brother, Isaac, stayed in Bathurst, raised his family and eventually died there.)  The distance from the above mention Warwick to Plympton is about 9 miles.

Gardner Journal:
“I think it was about 1843-1844 that an elder named John Baraman [Borrowman] brought the gospel of Jesus Christ to our neighborhood.  I did not oppose but I went to their meetings to hear and judge for myself. The Methodist minister used to hold meeting in his house but where the meeting come at the same time as the Mormon meeting he would go two miles to hear what the Mormon's taught. I would tell them they could go ahead hold their meeting. My wife and father and mother would take care of them. They advised me not to go near them for if I did I would be deceived but I went when I pleased and never went out of my way to shun meeting them.

“In the beginning of January 1845 in company with a few Saints we went a mile and half into the woods and cut a hole in the ice about 18 inches thick and was there baptized in the township of Brook in a stream called Brown's Creek. I was there baptized by his brother William who had been ordain elder, and I was confirmed by another elder, named Samuel Bolton, on a log by the water's edge that was the happiest day of my life up to that date. I can't describe my [feelings] but I felt as humble as a little child to think I had lived to have my sins remitted and received the Holy Ghost. It being winter time there was little work done by me for he wanted to spend all his time studying the scriptures and the Book of Mormon and other latter-day work.”

John Borrowman is the same missionary who taught great great grandparents George Corry and Margaret Climie.  (article about John Borrowman:  https://www.lds.org/ensign/1996/09/a-halfpenny-and-a-pearl?lang=eng )  George was baptized in 1843 and Margaret in 1844.
 
From the Gardner Journal—leaving Canada for Nauvoo:
He soon got ready and started early in March.  They went with horse teams. It was a very wet time and very muddy. They traveled through Michigan and took the nearest route for Nauvoo.  The company met Brother Archie, he having gone ahead we met him at Otaway on Fox River. They had started to load ox teams some time before and they overtook them a few days before they got to Nauvoo. Arrived at that place on the 6th day of April. They were having conference and apostle Orson Hyde was in charge of affairs there then for the main part of the church had gone west. The Canada company went to conference and they stayed a few days and bought our fitout; such things as we would need such as flour, corn meal and corn to parch to eat for food and such things as we would need on the journey.”

George and Margaret and their family were in this same group.  Their son Andrew Corry was born 28 April 1846 in the wagon as they crossed the Fox River in Ilinois.  We read in the Gardner Journal about when the “Canada Company” arrived in Nauvoo and their brief experiences there before leaving to follow the Saints who had already left in February.  It is sad to note that George and Margaret had five children when they lived in Plympton.  Two died there before they left for Nauvoo—Charlotte (1840) and Elizabeth (1845).  Their older daughter, Janet and two others, Margaret and George, left Canada with their parents and then Andrew was born as they crossed the Fox River.  So now there are four living children arriving in Nauvoo.
From the Gardner Journal:                                                                                                             “We crossed the Mississippi River and passed Montrose and went a few miles north and camped.   My father went up in Iowa to try and trade horses for oxen but the oxen had been bought up and they were scarce and could not be bought at any price. I had one Canadian horse that was very bad with the heaves, but I was told he would get over it out west. I met a man and inquired if he had any oxen to trade for this horse. He said, "No, but I have a fine mare," he would give me for him. I went to see her, but rode my horse very slow lest he would begin to heave. His mare was a very ? one, but I had to give him 14 dollars to boot. I got on my mare and rode away and thought I had done it.
“I rode about two miles and I met a man. He asked me if I had bought that mare. I said "Yes, wasn't she a fine one." He said "Yes, but she was stone blind;" that took me down a notch. But I did not go back
“After that I traded that horse for one yoke of cattle and I bought another yoke and a cow, went back to camp we then rigged up our ox teams instead of horses and started west.

“We traveled about twelve miles and camped for the night, 22 of May, 1846 in Lee County, Iowa. The next morning we fixed mother and baby as comfortable as possible and started on for the companies from Nauvoo was all ahead. And we loaded in more flour at Bonapart for we had strengthened our teams and we were pushing on for the Missouri River expecting to overtake the main camp of Saints there. By this time our company had got the name of the Canada Company for we traveled so close together. There was in the company John Park, William Park, David Park, and their families. James Hamilton and family, James Kilfoyal and family, Samuel Bolton and daughter, James Crage, John Baroman, George Coray and family, Andrew Coray and family, Brother Johnes and family, and John Smith and family, my brother William and family, Archibald and family, father and mother Rodger Luckham and family, myself and family.”

Of course, the George Coray and family is our George and Margaret.  The Andrew Coray is a mistaken first name since there wasn’t an Andrew Coray.  I am 99 and 44/100 per cent sure that it should be Thomas Corry and family.  Thomas is George’s older brother and he lived in Plympton with George.  I’m pretty sure he was baptized and then left the church probably in Winter Quarters and came back into Iowa where he lived with his family and died.  More about Thomas soon.
Gardner Journal:                                                                                                                         “Iowa was a new and thinly settled territory, and many of the Saints were poor and not having teams to travel with was counseled to stop where the land was not taken up and put in crops until they could help themselves.  They had settled a place called Garden Grove and another called Mount Pisgah and other places. Some of our camp began to drop off at some of these places and others went on. We overtook what was known as Orson Hyde's camp near Mosquito Creek close by the Missouri River. Here I began to see some of the suffering of the Saints. The first night we come to Hyde's camp there come up a storm thundered and the wind blew very hard so very hard rain.  Next morning it was painful to see the Saints with tents down (blown) down and wagon covers tore off and everything wet with the rain.
“I went to one tent that was blown down and found a woman sitting on the ground and a very young baby both shaking with the ague and a number of larger children sitting around in their wet clothes, shaking with the same disease, no one able to help the rest. I asked where her husband was and she said he was called to go to Mexico to fight for Uncle Sam [Mormon Battalion] who had driven us to the wilderness to endure these hardships. I tried to gather up her tent but I could not; it was wore out. They had been driven from Nauvoo in the dead of winter, in the depth of poverty, traveling through deep snow. The men having to leave part of their family by the wayside, and travel on perhaps for a week, then leave that part and go back for the rest with the same team, until themselves nearly everything they had was wore out. And many died by the way from hardships.
“We next traveled on a few miles to the main camp at the liberty poll on Mosquito Creek where President Young and council was making the rest of the 500 hundred men of the Mormon battalion to go to Mexico.
“We then traveled on about half a day to a camping ground near a grove of timber which was called Cutler Park. The season now being so far spent and so many of our best young men gone to Mexico, President Young thought best to go no further this fall but find winter quarters, cut hay for our stock and start on early in the spring. A town site was selected down the river called Winter Quarters.  Streets, blocks and lots were layed out and given out to the people. And in a few days a town of houses were in sight. Lots of hay was cut and stock taken to herd grounds, a large log meeting house was build and a good grist mill was built to grind our corn and wheat. Wood had to be provided for the family of the men that had gone in the battalion and there was a meat market erected and several blacksmith shops, shoe shops, chair makers and nearly all kind of work as if the people was going to stay for years.
“Men that could work had to work nearly night and day, for many of the older was taken with a disease called the black leg and was entirely helpless and many died with it. Their legs from their knees down would get as black as a coal.
“On the account of having to stay there that winter and use up their provisions many had to go to Missouri to work or trade for provisions and seed to take with them across the plains for it was the intention to start west early in the spring.
“Brother John Taylor and Parley P. Pratt arrived in Winter Quarters, from a mission to England while the Saints was getting ready and we traveled with them across the plains, the most of the company left Winter Quarters and other places early in June, went to the Elk Horn River about 20 miles there or near there we was organized into companies and we started on the 15th of June.
Now some more about the starting west. At the river where we was all camped at the Elk Horn we had to make a raft to take the wagons over the river. It was made of logs and pulled across by a rope by men's strength. We concluded to try ox strength instead of men which proved a success but my wagon was the first try with oxen and we lacked experience and the team started before the wagon was blocked or balanced being too near the hind end of the raft and the rope being hitched to the front and raised it up and my wagon and family and all I had began to roll back into the river. I caught the hind wheel and held it until we was across but the raft was nearly on end but God helped me and we were saved. Next the rope broke that pulled the raft and I swam the river twice to get it tied and kept on ferrying in my wet clothes which gave me the chills and fever again and they stayed with me half way across the plains.
“The company was divided into hundreds, fifties, and tens, each having a captain; Apostle John Taylor was in our company. It was all smooth traveling until we got about one hundred miles to a place, Pawnee village, a deserted Indian town. The train stopped to fix a bridge and I being several teams back I started on to help. I had gone but a few steps when my nigh leader turned out to get a bit of green grass. My eldest boy, Robert R., being in the wagon and being very careful stepped down of the tongue of the wagon to stand at their head till I come back. So the night wheeler kicked, throwing him under the wheel then started up the wagon running both wheels over his bowels. I was near enough but could not save him. We laid him in the wagon and started on that afternoon and after awhile he got out and ran and played to show me he was not much hurt to try and make us feel better, but he soon got into the wagon and never got out again without help. He lived till we traveled several hundred miles and died on Deer Creek on the Platte River. He seemed to fail every day. He was hurt in his kidneys and suffered fifty deaths. He lived till there was nothing left but he shin and bones. I had to drive my team all day and sit up and hold him all night and see him suffer all the time.
“With many other difficulties we made our way over rivers through the canyons and over the mountains and reached Salt Lake Valley. At the mouth of emigration canyon on October 1, 1847 my wagon was badly broken, my team nearly given out, and myself wore out. We looked over the valley there was not a house to be seen nor anything to make one of. But we was glad to see a resting place. And felt to thank God for the same. We then drove down to the camping place, afterwards calling the Old Fort. It is now in the lower part of Salt Lake City. I unyoked my oxen and sat down on my broken wagon tongue and said I could not go another day's journey, and the rest of the folks was nearly as bad off as me but they did not have so much sickness as I had in my family. But that was happy day for us all, for we knew that was a place where we could worship God according to the dictations of our own conscience, and mobs would not come, at least for awhile.

George and Margaret lost two more children at Winter Quarters:  Margaret and George, both in 1846.  They are buried in Florence, Nebraska, (which was formerly Winter Quarters) in a private cemetery not open to the public.  By the time they arrived in the Salt Lake Valley, only two of their six children were left, Janet, the oldest who was born in Canada and Andrew, their youngest at the time, who was born in Illinois while crossing the Fox River.


“All of the families that belonged to the Canada Company that reached Salt Lake at this time was John William and David Park and their families, George Coray and family, Rodger Luckham and family, my father and mother, William Archibald and myself and our family, Rodger Luckham's wife was my sister, James Crage come with the pioneers, and John Baraman went with the battalion and to the valley by way of California. The rest of the company stayed back till they got ready by getting teams and fitout. Some stayed back and apostatized.” (This included Thomas Corry and family who stayed in Iowa as mentioned above.)