Mary Fielding Smith's Prophetic Declaration to the Captain

At the Elk Horn, a captain told the widowed Mary Fielding Smith that her outfit was insufficient and she would be a burden to the company, advising her to return to Winter Quarters. She prophetically declared to him, 'I will beat you to the Valley, and will ask no help from you either!' Despite the captain's skepticism and the many challenges, Mary and her family arrived in the Valley on September 23rd, 1848, before the captain's company.

Before starting the journey, the captain of the company assigned to Mary Fielding Smith asked how many wagons and yokes of oxen she possessed; when she replied that she had seven wagons and four yokes of oxen, he told her it was folly to start and advised her to return to Winter Quarters. The captain was later identified as Cornelius P. Lott. During the journey, when one of her oxen fell, the captain taunted her, stating, 'I told you that you would be a burden to your company.' The eventual arrival in the Salt Lake Valley was precipitated by a mountain storm that forced the captain's company to stop and reorganize their scattered cattle, allowing Mary and her family to pass them and arrive in the Valley roughly twenty hours earlier.