(Crossed the plains with the Martin Handcart Company)
Henry (b. 1825)and Sarah (b. 1826) heard the Restored Gospel in England, and were baptized into
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Henry and his brothers Thomas, John, and James
were actively engaged in spreading the Gospel in England. John Squires and his family emigrated
(immigrated) to Utah in 1853. He was a barber and was well situated when his brother Henry and
family arrive in late November 1856.
The family came to America for the Gospel aboard the ship Horizon which took six long weeks
from England to Boston. They joined the Martin Handcart Company in Sept 1856 for the trek to
the Salt Lake Valley with 5 small children under the age of 8 and one more on the way leaving the
heaviest part of their possessions to follow. The family had two handcarts. It was late in the fall to
cross the plains, much more so the Mountains. They traveled the Old Mormon Trail and ran into
snow at the Green River Crossing, in Wyoming. Sarah spent the last parts of the trip snow-blind
and had to be led. Their oldest daughter 8 year old Sarah was made to walk and help push the
cart so her mother could ride. As they climbed a mountain with her father pulling and little Sarah pushing her shoe came off in the mud. She couldn’t stop or the
cart would roll down the mountain so she kept going leaving her shoe. That night she told her mother about her shoe and her mother looked at her little foot
bleeding from exposure. Her other shoe was in no better condition. A man in the company made her a pair of moccasins out of some buffalo hide and she wore
those the rest of the way to the valley. She never forgot his kindness.
When they reached the mouth of Echo Canyon, they were met there by a party of brethren who had been sent to meet and help this company into the valley.
At this precise time Sarah was ready to give birth. They dug through 6 feet of snow with a frying pan so that a bed and shelter could be made and she delivered
her sixth daughter. One of the brethren donated a shirt to wrap the baby in. This was the only swaddling clothes they had for her. They blessed the baby right
there, naming her Echo Lovina Squires. Brigham Young heard about the baby and sent the best wagon they had out directly to get the young mother and child.
Henry was called as a Seventy, block teacher, captain of the home guard and with his partner James Day they ran one of the largest mercantiles in the city. They
moved to Kaysville for about 8 years. Henry, a well to do merchant in England as well as a professor and author, could not take the rough pioneer life and never
fully recovered from exposure, and his health declined. President Young recommended he go back to England and so he left his two wives and family to see if the
change would help him.
In 1866 Sarah and the three youngest daughters (his second wife Emma Caroline declined to join them and never saw her husband again) set out to re-cross the
plains and the ocean and back to England. This time by Ox team and prairie Schooner as far as Chicago and thence to New York by train. They encountered Indian
troubles en-route to Chicago, Sarah saw them first and spread the alarm. They were only after the cattle and horses, but scalped one of the herders. They had a
rough crossing on the ocean and ran aground on a reef and were preparing to abandon ship, when the Captain cried out “Are there any Mormon Elders on board?”
Bro. Carl G. Maeser was among the missionaries and answered “Here we are.” The Captain replied “Thank God we are safe. I have never known a ship to go down
with Mormon Elders aboard.” and they arrived safely at Liverpool. There were no Mormon congregations in their area so Henry worked as
a Baptist minister until his death in 1914
Sarah and her girls loved the Gospel so much that they returned to Utah in 1874 at Echo’s insistence. This time via Steamboat and Train, all the way. Sarah stayed
for a year and then returned to England with the youngest of her 12 children. After her husband’s death, Sarah lived alone but, kept a big horse pistol loaded to the
hilt. She knew how to use it too and kept it under her pillow.
She was a vivacious, cheerful person who always looked on the bright side of everything. She had a ready wit to enliven the company she was in.
(Taken from Ruth Marie Knight Bybee off of the original documents typed/told by her paternal Grandfather Charles Lewis Knight.)
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