The Journey of William Buckminster Lindsay
William Buckminster Lindsay, Sr. - - pioneer and family patriarch - - lived a span of 76 years. He moved to the expanding frontier of the west five times - - in as many states, building anew each time. His living posterity in the fourth, fifth, and sixth generations number several thousand. He embraced the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and endured many hardships during the latter part of his life in helping to establish the newly organized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His life is characterized by these three things - - his religious faith and devotions, his pioneering spirit which led the building of new homes and communities, and for the achievement and accomplishment of his large posterity to whom he gave a noble birth.
In early 1846, the Mormons were forced by mob action to move from Nauvoo, Hancock, Illinois. Of the two children who were married in Nauvoo and who were with the Saints at the time of their exodus William Buckminster Lindsay, Jr. left his wife under the care of his brother, Ephriam Myers Lindsay and went with the first group of Saints to cross Iowa as a body guard to Brigham Young. He returned from the advanced camp to join his brother and their wives and then left for Wisconsin to persuade his parents and brothers and sisters to join them in the trek west. It is not certain whether Ephriam and his wife went with William B. to Wisconsin or not. They stayed in Wisconsin for a while because Julia's first child was born there. Ephriam Myers and Jane had a child born in Des Moines, Iowa which means that they either waited there or the child was born on the trip to join with the Saints.
William Buckminster Lindsay, Sr., his wife Sarah Myers, and five of his children assembled in Kanesville, Pottawattomie, Iowa in 1848. Here they settled for a period of four years to grow food and assemble resources to sustain them during the trip west. With them also was John Myers, brother to Sarah. It was in John Myers' home in Kanesville, that Edwin Reuben Lindsay married Tabitha Cragun in 1850. There were over forty branches of the Saints gathered at Kanesville during these years.