Catherine Wilson

Catharine Wilson is the seventh of ten children born to Bushrod Washington Wilson from New York and Catherine Iona Anderson from Pennsylvania. As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Wilson family joined the Benjamin Gardner Company to trek west to the Great Salt Lake Valley.

Exhaustive travel conditions, disease, injury, lack of food and medicine, prematurity, and extreme weather were some of the greatest threats to pioneers. While on the journey, cholera (a bacterial disease caused from contaminated water) invaded the company and was the cause of many deaths. Catharine, 2-years-old, was among those victims and is buried near the Platte River in Nebraska.

From her father’s journal: “I left home in Pottowatomie [Pottawattamie] Iowa For the City of the Great Salt Lake and wated on Capt. Gardners Company til the 2 day of June[.] I crossed the Missourie River[.] when we got on to the platt[e] River we had the Collerry [cholera] in the camp[.] thirteen deaths and among those that dide were Catherine the youngest of our children, her age was 2 years 7 months 16 days[.]