George William Dart

George William Dart is the sixth child born to John Dart and Lucy Ann Roberts, both from Connecticut. His parents were married in 1831 in Connecticut.

In 1850 the Dart family joined the Warren Foote Company to go journey west with other members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day 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. During the trek, cholera (a bacterial disease caused from contaminated water) and other diseases infected the Saints. George William, his sister, and mother became ill from cholera. George, 8-years-old, passed away from the disease. His sister died 12 hours prior, and his mother, Lucy Ann, died a week later, each from cholera.

From a Dart Family history: “The night rain descended in torrents and while traveling the next morning the wagon became stuck in the mud. In trying to unstuck, the wagon tongue broke, they stopped to make repairs. While they stopped, Lucy Ann and two of the children, Harriet Paulina and George William, were taken ill with cholera. Soon after they started George asked to be taken out of the wagon. This the father did, but then he put the boy back in the wagon, George had passed away. They traveled on to where the company was camped, a grave was dug, and George William Dart, age eight years, was buried June 29th at dark.”

Researched by Penny Magnusson Hannum