Zion's Camp (1834) — March from Kirtland to Missouri and the Cholera Outbreak

In 1834 a company known as Zion's Camp marched from Kirtland, Ohio, toward Independence, Missouri; these accounts relate participants and events from that expedition, including the severe cholera outbreak that struck the camp in Missouri.

Charlotte Alvord (b. September 25, 1815, Lockport, Niagara County, New York), daughter of Thaddeus Alvord and Sally Wellington Alvord, was baptized March 14, 1833, and by 1834 had joined the Latter-day Saint branch at Pontiac, Michigan. At age eighteen she marched with Zion's Camp and was among roughly twelve women (and seven children) who accompanied the company on the long overland journey. Sources record Joseph Smith counseling husbands with families to find houses for their wives and children and go on ahead, and Joseph Holbrook recorded Joseph Smith saying that if the sisters were willing to undergo a siege with the camp they could all go along with it.

Addison Greene (June 12, 1819–1892), son of John Portineus Greene and Rhoda Young Greene (placing him in the extended family of Brigham Young), was just fourteen years old when he joined Zion's Camp, making him one of the youngest participants. A Doctrine and Covenants seminary manual cites Addison (age 14) and George Albert Smith (age 16) as youthful examples among those who marched. Contemporary accounts give the distance of the expedition variously (records here cite figures of about nine hundred miles and over 1,000 miles).

The camp suffered a deadly cholera outbreak near the Missouri River in late June 1834. Wilford Woodruff and other records note that John S. Carter (c. 1792–1834) stepped forward “to rebuke” the cholera and was instantly smitten; he died on June 24, 1834, in Clay County, Missouri, and left six children. Dialogue Journal and other sources report that the disease struck multiple members—one account states that three days later Ezra Thayer and Thomas Hayes (1817–1846) were also stricken—and that the outbreak ultimately killed fourteen members of Zion's Camp. Thomas Hayes survived that 1834 outbreak; he remained faithful in subsequent years (Wilford Woodruff's journal records Hayes's ordination to the office of Elder on September 14, 1840). (One account title indicates Thomas Hayes later died in 1846 at Mount Pisgah on the Pioneer Trail.)

Fuller account of this event (in the witness’s own words):

While traveling we called at the house of Mr. Moss for a drink of water. The woman of the house shouted from the door that they had no water for Mormons—that they were afraid of the Cholera &c; at the same time throwing out her arms as if defending herself from the cholera in the form of a personage. We turned and departed according to the commandment, and before a week had passed the cholera entered that house and that woman and three others of the family were dead. When the cholera made its appearance, Elder John S. Carter was one of the first who stepped forward to rebuke it, and upon this was instantly seized, and became the first victim in the camp. He died about 6 o'clock in the afternoon; and Seth Hitchcock died in about thirty minutes after. As it was impossible to obtain coffins, the brethren rolled the corpses in blankets, carried them on a horse-sled about half a mile, buried them in the bank of a small stream which empties into Rush Creek, all of which was accomplished by dark. When they had returned from the burial, the brethren united, covenanted and prayed, hoping the disease would be staid; but in vain, for while thus covenanting, Eber Wilcox died.