Melissa Coray: A Baby Born in Monterey, Gold Abandoned for Zion, and a Faithful Widow at Twenty-One (1847–1849)

After the Mormon Battalion was discharged in the summer of 1847, Melissa and William Coray started north through California. At Monterey, a baby boy was born — but he lived only a few days and was buried in the small cemetery there. 'As soon as she was able to travel, they started out again,' her descendants recorded. 'She said the trip was hard; the country was new; and there were no roads.'

At one point they came to a gorge so narrow the wagon couldn't pass. They took the wagon apart and carried it through piece by piece.

At Sutter's Mill, they found the gold rush had begun. The Corays stopped long enough to get means to continue. William Coray sent two sacks of gold back east to bring his mother and sister to Utah.

In Nevada, the worst night of Melissa's life came. An advance party of five men had been sent ahead; the main company found their bodies in a gulch — killed by Indians with poisoned arrows. The company buried them and camped nearby, firing a small cannon through the night to keep the Indians away.

They arrived in Salt Lake City in December 1848. A baby girl was born February 6, 1849.

Then Sergeant Coray died. Weakened by the hardships of the march, he passed away in March 1849 — less than three months after reaching Zion. Melissa was twenty-one years old, a widow with a newborn.

Two years later, she married William H. Kimball, eldest son of Heber C. Kimball. She spent the rest of her life in Utah and died in Salt Lake City on September 21, 1903.

Several years before her death, she made a return trip to California, visiting the sites of her march. At the San Luis Rey Mission she was surrounded by priests who 'could hardly get away from her, they were so anxious to hear her story.' She tried to find the grave of her first baby in Monterey. The cemetery had changed too much. She could not locate it.