Introduction

The migration of a people due to religious faith is a common cause for pilgrimage. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (also known as the Mormons) moved from its 1830 New York beginnings gradually west, until the Salt Lake Valley became a haven in 1847 for the persecuted group. Missionary efforts abroad inspired thousands of European converts to gather in Utah. These immigrants spent months making the perilous journey by ship, train, wagon, and foot; a six month journey was the norm before 1869. It is estimated that 70,000 Mormons came to Utah between 1847-1869. Although LDS church agents helped coordinate travel efforts, usually the immigrants came in family groups.  

Between 1848 and 1864, ten women embarked on remarkable journeys. Not only did they leave all that was familiar to arrive in a wild and foreign land, but due to varied personal reasons they also traveled without the benefit of a husband or father. In a time when women couldn't vote, own property, or chart their own life's course, these ladies demonstrated unusual courage and independence.

The Rogers, Scarborough, and Thorne women all left England to sail to America and then walk to Utah. The Jacobsen women followed a similar route from Denmark. The Eastman women also walked to Utah, but began their journey in Vermont. These mother-daughter pairs ranged in age and circumstance, and thus some pairs were captained by the adult daughter, others by the mother. They were widowed, married but separated, married but widowed en route, and never married; old and young. Rebecca Rogers was the most senior of these women, at age 66, and Annie Scarborough was only 8 years old. 

They were businesswomen, wealthy widows, poor shopkeepers, and seamstresses. In America, they became a telegrapher, a shopkeeper, a prosperous wife, a quick fatality, and beloved grandmothers. One was kidnapped en route, another was sick the entire journey; their new experiences included one woman delighted by watching a whale, and another terrified of Indians. Their socioeconomic differences leveled out in the desert towns where they settled, and they are remembered by posterity for extraordinary faith and bravery.  

The Scarboroughs and Eastmans were neighbors and later in-laws, but it is likely that the other pairs never met each other until united on a twentieth century family tree. However, examining their representative experiences provides insight into the larger historical context of the great westward migration, and into the ability of women to cope and even thrive in those difficult circumstances.