The Journey of Daniel Mark Burbank, Jr.
Daniel Mark Burbank, Jr., was born at this place 10 June 1846, in a rude frontier home with scarcely the necessities of life. In the fall of the year his parents moved on to a place called Old Agency where they could spend the Winter. In the spring they moved on to the Bluffs, called Hannerville. It was in route to the Bluffs that tragedy struck. One morning the team started up suddenly throwing my older brother, Joseph Smith Burbank, out of the wagon and underneath the wagon wheels and he was run over and killed. He was named after the Prophet Joseph Smith whom his father dearly loved. He was buried along the Platte River.
He was six years old when his parents started west with the Saints for Salt Lake. His father was made a Captain of ten wagons on this trip. As they were crossing the plains in the alkali desert of Wyoming Cholera broke out among the Company. His mother was among the first to die of the plague. She was placed in a shallow grave, wrapped in a quilt for a coffin and covered over. Sage brush was burned over the grave to stop coyotes from digging up the body.
Sarah Zurviah Southworth reports the incident thus; We were traveling along the Platte River when Cholera broke out. Our Captain's wife, Abigail Burbank, died 20 July 1852, near Sweet Water, Nebraska, on the Platte River and was buried with out a coffin, along with many others of the company who died with the disease. A young lady and I were the only ones not afraid to wash and dress her for burial. Her underclothing and night gown were used and then we sewed her up in a sheet and quilt. This was all that could be done for the burial.
This left my father with four small children, Mary Lydia, eight; Daniel M. Jr., six; Abigail, four; and Laura, two years. Soon after this Sarah Zurviah Southworth, rode in the wagon and took care of the children.
While on the plains near the South Pass, his father married Sarah Z. Southworth, 10 September, 1852. Captain Walker of another Company married them. They sounded a bugle and called the camp together to witness the marriage. We used cedar torch lights for candles, it was on the Green River. It was here we all had scarlet fever, but our new mother nursed us back to health. One day my father saw a lone buffalo with his spyglasses and rode out on the prairie to shoot it for meat for the camp. Soon he was surrounded by about one hundred Indians and we feared for his life, but the Indians brought him back to camp and gave him back to us for flour, sugar, ect.
After many trials and privations we arrived in the Great Salt Lake City, 7 October, 1852, and was sent to Springville, in Utah County. The Indians were very bad that winter. In April of 1853 we moved to Grant's Fort (Grantsville) in Tooele County. The settlers had started a Fort and my father helped finish it. They brought in logs from the Oquirrah's and built them a cabin inside the Fort. My father fought in the Utah War in 1856 - 1857 and lived here until June 1863 and then moved to Brigham City, Box Elder, Utah.