A Sketch of the Life of Mrs. Sarah Burbank

[Note: The following excerpts from "A Sketch of the Life of Mrs. Sarah Burbank" are provided for research purposes only, not for copyright publication. Copies are available at various Utah and Western libraries.]

I will write a little sketch of my life and travels. I was born in 1835 in Upper Canada, town of Baston, County of Leads. My parents joined the church in Canada when I was a small child. They sold their home there and moved with the saints to Missouri where the mob told us if we did not go back they would kill us all, but we went on as the Lord directed us and traveled on up to Kirtland, Ohio, where the first temple was built. There the wicked mob stole our goods. As my father was a rich man, he brought a great lot of things from his lovely home to gather with the Latter-Day Saints. There we suffered great persecution by the mob. They put the Prophet Joseph Smith in prison in chains and tried to make him eat human flesh, but the Lord made known to him not to eat their meat.

There were women and children put in a court house while the men with their guns went to fight them, but the Lord drove them away and we were saved. We had to stay in the court house all day without food, so many people had to stand up, children crying for bread. I was one of them.

I was eight years old when I saw the Prophet Joseph Smith first. I have been in his store and bought things for my parents. We lived not far from his house on Minholand Street. I have heard him preach, also his brother Hyrum. I have shaken hands with him in Sunday School. His second wife, Eliza Snow Smith, was my teacher. In a grove by the Prophet Joseph Smith's house I have seen his first wife, Emma Hale Smith, and his mother Lucy Mack Smith. The Prophet's father's name was Joseph. He was the first Patriarch in the Church of the Latter-Day Saints.

I have seen Joseph in his Regiment suit on his black horse, named Charley, drilling his soldiers, sword in hand as they marched with drums and fifes. I with many people, sat on the green grass watching him, his big feather flying on his hat. He looked grand.

I have seen and been in the Nauvoo Temple when it had some of the rooms finished. My parents had their endowments there. So did my husband, D. M. Burbank.

I have been in the Salt Lake Temple and Logan Temple and in the Endowment House where my husband and I had our endowments and sealings.

My father's name was Chester Southworth. Mother's name was Mary Byington Southworth. She was born in Canada where I was born, in the same town. She was born in the year of 1811. She died in 1899 at the age of 87 years. My father died at the age of 82 years. He was born in York State, Lawrence County, near Lake Ontario. I don't know the year he was born. I can't remember, for he has been dead fifty three years. His first wife, Abby Church died and left three children. Mother married him and raised two of the children, his sister, the other one. Mother married him and raised eight children. All are dead but Joseph and myself. Their names are, the oldest, Susannah, Emily, Emeline, Robert, Chester, and Laura. I had thirteen children. There names are George, Brigham, Charles, James, John Chester, Alonzo, Olive, Deseret, Sarah, Eliza, Louis, and Rose. Five of them were born in Granstville, the other eight were born in Brigham. My youngest son, Chester, is forty seven years of age. My oldest son is seventy one the 26th day of July of this year, 1924.

We were driven from Kirtland to Farr West, Missouri, and again to Caldwell and from there to Montrose, Illinois. And later to Nauvoo. In this flight we had to cross the Mississippi River in the night on a flat boat to save our lives. The people were camped by the river, some of which were without tents and many sick and some dying. We did not know where we were going but got word from Brigham Young that we were going west.

We then went on to Mt. Pisgah and stayed there all winter. Father made shoes to get flour, bacon, and groceries so we could go on again to Council Bluffs where the saints were settling for the winter.

Later we moved into a town called Kanesville. As we were going there my sister died and was buried by a lone tree by the road side. We went on and never saw her grave again. She was eight years of age when she died. When we were moving up to Missouri my little brother died from an attack of croup and was buried by the road side. We were driven on by the mob and never saw his grave again. This is one of the trials my parents had to endure.

While in Council Bluffs father built a cabin of logs, built the chimney out of sods cut out of big square pieces of mud with grass on one side, layed up like adobes. That was the chimney. The ground was the floor. The door was made of slabs. The window of cloth. We lived there two years. While there we raised a little corn, a few potatoes and a small garden. Father made shoes and boots from a little leather he had and sold them for flour. We were working to go west. I worked for 50c a week. I was spinning rolls on a big wheel to make yarn for cloth for weeks. I spun 20 pounds of rolls into yarn for a lady. I was not fifteen years old then. Later I worked in a boarding house for a dollar a week and obtained clothes to start on the journey west.

From that place we crossed the Missouri River on a flat boat, one wagon at a time. The oxen were chained to wheels. This was the manner in which they all crossed the river.

In June we all camped in a place called Winter Quarters where the company was organized in companies of fifty with a captain over each. D. M. Burbank was our captain. Then we went on our journey among the Indians. At night we had to guard the oxen so they would not steal them. We chained the cattle to the wheels of the wagons. The bugle was sounded in the morning and all the camp called together for prayers. The cows were yoked with the oxen and traveled many miles before getting water and food. On the first part of the journey when we came to streams of water we found willows to make bridges so that we could take the wagons over.

When we came to a stream we would wash our clothes and dry them on the grass for we might not get a place again for fifty or one hundred miles. We gathered dried dung and buffalo chips to make a fire, to cook our food, dug a hole in the ground, put the skillet in the hole with a tight lid on it, put the buffalo chips on the lid and set it afire. It baked the bread fine. That was the way we did our cooking until we got where there was wood again.

Then we went along the Platte River where we had cholora. Five died with it in our company. My youngest sister was born on the plains. My oldest sister gave birth to a baby on the plains and many other women gave birth to babies but the company was not hindered in their march as they would move on the next morning making quite a hardship for the women. My husband's wife Abby died with cholera and was buried without a coffin by the Platte River among the others. We had to go on in the morning and never saw their graves again. The night that Abby was buried the wolves were howling. It was awful to hear the dirt thrown on their bodies. A young lady and I were the only ones to wash and dress her with what we could find. Her underclothes and a nightgown. We sewed her up in a sheet and a quilt. That was all that could be done for her burial. All the women in the camp were afraid to prepare the body for burial for fear they would catch the cholera from her. This young girl and I were not afraid to take care of the body. We were only sixteen years old but brave in the case.

We started in June and was four months on our journey before we arrived at the Salt Lake Valley. Three months after Abby died I married D. M. Burbank on the plains. Captain Walker of another company that camped by us married us one evening. The bugle called the camp together to witness our marriage. We had cedar torch lights instead of candles. It was by Green River in September. There I mothered four children that were sick with scarlet fever. My husband and I had great sickness and trouble the rest of the way. We also had a number of oxen die and had to stop for the camp to get cows instead of oxen. A hundred Indians took D. M. Burbank a prisoner. We thought he would be killed but the chief gave him up to us if we would give them flour, sugar, and coffee. We rejoiced when we saw the captain. He had gone to hunt a buffalo that he had seen through a spy glass. He had killed buffaloes before when hunting for a camping place. The poor cows furnished us with milk or we would have suffered for a drink, as the water was so bad for hundreds of miles. We had to grind parched corn in a coffee mill to eat in milk to save our flour. We would eat it at night in milk. We parched a sack full before we left home. I stood over a fireplace and helped mother do it. The oxen stampeded and ran away toward the river. One woman was killed. I jumped out of the wagon with mother and came nearly being killed. It rained so hard that night we had to sit up all night and had to hold the covers on all night. It happened many nights.

When fording streams we could just see the oxens backs and horns and thought our wagons would go under, but we got out alive by the help of the Lord.

Now I will tell you where I was baptised. In Nauvoo, Illinois in the Mississippi River just below Joseph Smith's house when I was eight years old. Elder Chuncy West baptised me. Elder Lorin Farr confirmed me on the bank of the Mississippi River, then we all traveled to the valley of Springville, and all the camp had to be baptised. That was the order we got from President Young. He said this was done that all of our sins might be washed away after our long journey to Salt Lake.

When I was fifteen years of age I went to a boarding school to learn to braid straw hats. I sewed them for one dollar apiece. After I got married I made hats for my children and many others for years and sold them. I learned this trade in Nauvoo and made and sold hats on steam boats that were on the Mississippi River.

Many people were baptized for their dead relatives in the Mississippi River. My parents did it for their relatives. That was the order from the Prophet Joseph. The Lord told him to have it done this way till they could build a temple. Many did it over again in the Nauvoo Temple when a few rooms were finished. They had to hurry and get all the saints through the temple for the mob said they would burn it down, when our guards came onto them with guns and saved it that time. But not for long, as they soon burned it to the ground. They went in people's houses, dragged out men, women and children and burned their houses to the ground and left them in the street. A young man went to fight them with his gun to save his widow mother. While he was gone they went in and killed his sick mother. He had to hide until they got away, then he secured help and buried his mother. While doing this they stole his clothes and bedding and burned his house. That was the way they did to scores of people. They drove them across the river in the night in leaking boats. This happened in the beautiful city of Nauvoo. I used to go past the temple and watch the men work on it. After the temple was finished the saints held meeting in it for a short time. Men worked on the temple with nothing to eat but corn bread and bacon, then to see it burn to the ground after working so long was a great trial. The mob took the prophet and his brother Hyrum and killed them in Carthage Jail. They said if the Prophet was killed that would put an end to Mormonism. He was an innocent prophet that the Lord brought forth to lead his people in this last dispensation.

After the prophet's death the Lord made known to Brigham Young that he was to be our leader. When Brigham was speaking to the saints that day his voice sounded like Joseph, and he looked like him, then the saints knew he was our prophet, seer, and revelator. I bore my testimony that he was a prophet of God, raised up to lead the people in these last days.

When Joseph and Hyrum were brought back from Carthage dead, my parents went to see them lying in their bloody clothes in Joseph's house. People went to see them by the thousands. My parents went to their funeral. It was a mock funeral to fool the mob. Boxes were filled with sand because of threats that their bodies would be dug up. The city was in great mourning and many cried saying, "What will we do for our great prophet is gone." The Lord raised up another in the person of Brigham Young.

My husband D. M. Burbank, used to guard his house and took him out in the country and get him away from the mob. He dressed himself in his mother's old dress and bonnet and took her cane and basket, bent over and walked past the mob and got away. My husband guarded the Prophet just before he was taken to Carthage where he was put in jail. Hyrum was holding the door when the mob fired the bullet through it striking him. He fell to the floor exclaiming, "I am a dead man." Joseph was shot as he was about to leap from the window. They took and set him by a wall.

John Taylor was shot in his hip and hand. A bullet struck his watch that hung over his heart and that saved his life. The doctor's took the bullet out of his wounds. Williard Richards crawled under the bed and saved his life.