History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

POOR CAMP. 23if
latter part of September, and nearly all were prostrated
with chills and fevers; 33 there at the river bank,
among the dock and rushes, poorly protected, without
the shelter of a roof or anything to keep off the force
of wind or rain, little ones came into life and were left
motherless at birth. 34 They had not food enough to
satisfy the cravings of the sick, nor clothing lit to
wear. For months thereafter there were periods
when all the flour they used was of the coarsest, the
wheat being ground in coffee and hand mills, which
only cut the grain; others used a pestle; the finer meal
was used for bread, the coarser made into hominy.
Boiled wheat was now the chief diet for sick and well.
For ten days they subsisted on parched corn. Some
mixed their remnant of grain w 7 ith the pounded bark
of the slippery elm which they stripped from the
trees along their route.
This encampment was about two miles above
Montrose on the Mississippi, and was called the
Poor Camp. Aid was solicited, and within three
weeks a little over one hundred dollars was collected,
mostly in Quincy, with provisions and clothing,
though the prejudice against them was deep and
strong. 35 Some of the people were crowded into
tents, made frequently of quilts and blankets; others
in bowers made of brush; others had only wagons for
shelter. They suffered from heavy thunder-storms,
when the rain was bailed out with basins from their
beds. Mothers huddled their children in the one
dress which often was all they possessed, and shaking
w T ith ague or burning with fever, took refuge from
the pitiless storms under wagons and bushes. 33
33 While at Montrose, Heber C. Kimball writes thus in his journal of the
condition of his family, his wife having a babe a few days old, and he himself
' ill with ague. I went to the bed; my wife, who was shaking with the ague,
.the only child well was little
having two children lying sick by her side;. .
Heber Parley, and it was with difficulty be could carry a two-quart pail full
of water from a spring at the bottom of the hill.'
34 ' Such deaths occurred from exposure and fright in Nauvoo. The camp
journalist recorded: Effect of persecution by the Illinois mob.'
35 The trustees from Nauvoo also distributed clothing, and molasses, salt,
and salt pork. Hist. B. Young, MS., 1846, 383.
3li Mrs Clara Youwfs Experience, MS., 3.