George's Story
Birth: January 6th, 1850 | male | in Council Bluffs, Pottawattamie, Iowa
Death: September 7th, 1851 | 1 year old | enroute to Utah
Memorial: Stone 2
George Gamaliel Vail is the only child born to Isaac Hawk Vail of Illinois and Susannah Benson of Missouri. Isaac and Susannah were married in 1848 in Council Bluffs, Nebraska.
As member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the family joined the Morris Phelps Company to journey with other Saints to the 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 a family history indicates that three days before the company reached Salt Lake City, 1-year-old George drowned in Kanyon Creek, the Morris Phelps Company journal records: “George was 1 year and 5/12 months old. He died enroute to Utah 3 months after departure. Possibly died of Mountain Fever which spred through the company.”
What is known is that little one year old George G. Vail passed away, and is buried somewhere along the Mormon Trail.