Austin Cravath Brown

Mormon Pioneer

"...I was born 30th April 1850 near Council Bluffs, Iowa. When I was six weeks old, my parents started on the long journey across the plains, with their own team, which consisted of one yoke of oxen, one yoke of cows, & one ox on lead, working in single harness. The family consisted of nine members: Father & mother, two brothers Rodolphus [Cravath] aged 16 & Daniel aged 4. Four sisters Hellen [Cravath] 14 years Mary [Cravath] 12 years Laura [Cravath] 10 & Hester Ann 2 tears old, & the six week old baby. In Jonathan [Warren] Footes Co.

Two weeks out from the Missouri River the cholera struck the camp, and my father was the first one to fall a victom to its ravages, and two days later my brother Rodolphus also died leaving my mother with her family of little ones to cross the plains.

The three older girls yoked up the team and drove the rest of the way to the Salt Lake Valley, where we arrived 17th. Sept 1850..."

SOURCE: Brown, Austin Cravath, Autobiographical sketch, in Genealogical Charts and Biographical Sketches of Members of the L.D.S. Church, Ogden Stake, 26 vols., 18:53. http://lds.org/churchhistory/library/source/1,18016,4976-22651,00.html