Moroni Davis

Moroni Davis is the middle of five children born to William Davis and Elizabeth Noyes Hope, both from England. The family immigrated to America and joined the William Hyde Company of 1864 to journey to the Great Salt Lake Valley with other members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Exhaustive travel conditions, disease, injury, lack of food and medicine, prematurity, and extreme weather were some of the greatest threats to pioneers. Cholera (a bacterial disease caused from contaminated water) invaded the camp. Among the victims were 5-year-old Moroni and his mother, Elizabeth. Moroni and his mother were wrapped in a sheet and covered with a blanket and buried side-by-side in one grave along the Mormon Trail West.

According to the history of William Davis: “Elizabeth passed away less than a week into the journey in the early hours of the morning. Her husband William was so distraught he gave little thought to how sick Moroni was with the same disease. A short time after his mother's death he called out to his father in a faint voice and asked, "Daddy, I want some soup." He asked him to wait till daylight and he would make him some soup. Just as daylight came, he built a fire and made some soup. Taking it to the child he found it was too late. The child had died.”