Henry Wilde

Henry Wilde is the third child born to Henry Brown Wilde and Sarah Hewlett, both from England. As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the family immigrated to America. After their arrival they joined the Robert Wimmer Company of 1852 to travel with other Saints 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. Adventurous, 6-year-old Henry climbed a tree, fell, died from his injuries and was buried near the Platt River.

From the history of Sarah Hewlett Wilde: “While they were camped near the Platte River, her son Henry who was then six years old, climbed a nearby tree to play and to get a view of the land, tragically he fell from the tree and died of his injuries. They had to bury him there by the river, and press on up the trail the next day. Sarah later recalled to her granddaughter, that this was the hardest trial of her life. To leave the body of her precious child there, knowing that wild beasts would dig him up, was almost more than she could bear. She was obviously a woman of great strength and faith to be able to continue on her journey at that time.”