Moroni Spafford

Moroni Spafford is the sone of Horace Spafford from Vermont and Martha Stiles from Canada.

As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Spafford family joined the Warren Foote Company to pioneer west toward 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. Cholera (a bacterial disease caused from contaminated water) invaded the camp. Among the victims were Moroni, his mother, his brother, Horace, and his sisters Rhoda and Minerva.

Moroni’s father, Horace, buried them all in one grave, wrapped in a feather bed and quilts. He placed large stones over the grave to keep wolves and other wild animals from disturbing the resting place.