With the Advance Company: Gilbard Summe of the Fourteenth Ten Enters the Valley (1847)

Gilbard Summe was born on August 22, 1802, in Randolph County, North Carolina, to John and Caroline Summe; his name appears in pioneer records under several spellings, including Gilburd, Gilbroid, and Gilbert. He joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on June 20, 1845, and on July 17, 1845, in Illinois, he married Sarah Jackson (Hyde), the widow of William Wood Hyde, whose young family had already buried a daughter at Winter Quarters.

In 1847, Gilbard was asked to join Brigham Young's Vanguard Company, the first Mormon pioneer company to travel to the Salt Lake Valley. He was assigned to the Fourteenth Ten under Captain Joseph Mathews — the same ten that included Green Flake and Hark Lay — in a company that ultimately numbered 142 men, 3 women, and 2 children with 72 wagons. When the company broke into an advance group to push ahead over the last ranges, Gilbard went with it, and he entered the Salt Lake Valley with the advance company on July 22, 1847, three days ahead of Brigham Young, after a journey of 1,031 miles.

His wife Sarah emigrated that same season with the Jedediah M. Grant Company, arriving in Utah on October 4, 1847, with her fourteen-year-old son William. Gilbard spent the rest of his life in the gathering: on April 6, 1850, he was sustained a counselor in the general presidency of the Deacons; he was active in preserving the safety of the settlers during the Walker War; he spent a season in San Bernardino, California, and in the lead mines near Mountain Spring, Nevada, before returning to Utah in 1857 when the Saints were recalled in the face of the Johnston's Army threat. In 1865 he was called to the Muddy Mission in Nevada's Moapa Valley, helping settle St. Joseph before the colony was abandoned. He died in Harrisburg, Washington County, Utah, on June 13, 1867, at age 64.