Matthias Cain Cowley

Mormon Pioneer

"...Born in Kirkbraddan, Isle of Mann. He joined the Church in 1843 and his family immigrated to Nauvoo. His reminiscences tell amazing stories of endurance and faith during his time before traveling to the Salt Lake Valley.

Matthias initially traveled to the Salt Lake Valley in the Henry W. Miller Company in 1852, and was a teamster for Orson Hyde the entire way, as indicated in his Reminiscences.

On June 22, 1853, Matthias left for a mission in Europe with 28 men, 7 wagons, and 23 animals as indicated in his reminiscences.

At the end of his mission to Europe, he traveled home as captain of the Matthias Cowley Company in 1857 as indicated by Anna Christina Jensen McRae's Reminiscences and an article in the Arkansas State Gazette and Democrat on 20 June 1857.

Companies

Henry W. Miller Company (1852)
Approximate age at departure: 22
Matthias Cowley Company (1857) Approximate age at departure: 27

Sources

"Passage of Mormons," Arkansas State Gazette and Democrat, 20 June 1857.
Trail Excerpt Source Location Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah Carling, Isaac V., [Diary], in Elda Mortenson, comp., Isaac V. Carling Family History, vol. 1, 48-55. Trail Excerpt Source Location Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah Cowley, Matthias, Reminiscences, 1856, 7. Source Location Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah Liljenquist, Ole Nielsen, "Autobiography of Bishop O. N. Liljenquist, One of the Fathers of the Scandinavian Mission," Tullidge's Quarterly Magazine, July 1881, 571; ibid., Morgenstijernen, 1883, 25-32, 37-46. Trail Excerpt Source Location Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah McRae, Anna Christina Jensen, Reminiscences, 2-3. Trail Excerpt Source Location Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah Morgenstjernen, 1883, p. 25-32, 37-46

Source Location Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah Richards, S. W. and Briant Stringam, 18 Aug. 1857, in Brigham Young, Office Files 1832-1878, reel 35, box 25, fd. 23.