Sarah Ann Galliher

Sarah Ann Galliher is the fifth of thirteen children born to John Galliher, Sr. of Kentucky and Sarah Ann Browning of Tennessee.

The families of John and Sarah joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and moved to Nauvoo. John and Sarah met and were married in 1844. After the Saints were forced to leave Nauvoo, John and Sarah moved to Pottawattamie County, Iowa. It was there they welcomed a daughter, Sarah Ann.

With a desire to go to “Zion” in the Great Salt Lake Valley, they, and other Saints, joined the Henry W. Miller Company. The company began the journey west on July 8, 1852.

Exhaustive travel conditions, disease, injury, lack of food and medicine, premature birth, and extreme weather were some of the greatest threats to pioneers. Cholera, a bacterial disease caused from contaminated water, infected many of the travelers. Many in the company suffered from cholera, and when near Fort Kearney, Nebraska, 8-month-old Sarah Ann died of the disease and is buried near Wood River.

From the James Allen Browning journal: “There were a few deaths in our camp of cholera mostly, among which was a niece of mine—a babe of John & Sarah Galliher—(& was buried on Wood River.)”

From the diary of Isaac V. Carling: “Sat. 24. We buried my sister-in-law's (Sarrah Galiher's) child out of the second Company of ten; then traveled on and nooned at Elm Creek.”