Samuel's Story
Birth: February 24th, 1844 | male | in Nauvoo, Hancock, Illinois
Death: July 8th, 1852 | 8 years old | about 150 miles out of Winter Quarters at Elm Creek, Nebraska
Memorial: Stone 3 | left column
Samuel Smith Young is the son of Adolphia Young and Rhoda Byrne Jared, both of Tennessee. As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the family joined the John Tidwell Company to journey west 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. Cholera (a bacterial disease caused by contaminated water) invaded the company. Adolphia, Samuel’s father passed away from cholera on the July 5. Samuel also contracted cholera. He desperately wanted to be baptized so a member of the company, Jeff McCullough, baptized him. The following day, 8-year-old Samuel Smith Young died. He was buried the next morning where they camped.