P R E S E R V I N G   O U R   P A S T

Ann Grimshaw Jackson

Ann Grimshaw Jackson, a daughter of James Hedge and Martha Grimshaw, was born in 1806 in Manchester, Lancashire, England.  On July 19, 1824, she was married to Benjamin Jackson.  To them were born nine children, all of them being born in Manchester, Lancashire, England:

    James Jackson            December 24, 1824

    Ann Jackson            January 24, 1827

    William Jackson            November 1, 1829

    Elizabeth Jackson           June 21, 1832

    Martha Jackson            April 20, 1835

    John Jackson            September 5, 1837

    Joseph Jackson            December 12, 1839

    Samuel Jackson            July 13, 1844

    Nephi Jackson            May 8, 1847

Benjamin was a carpenter by trade.  He and his family decided that he should go ahead to America and, there, he would work as a carpenter to earn money which he would send back to England to pay the way to America for the rest of the family.  In 1849, he boarded a sailing vessel bound for America.  He was not to be heard from again until the late 1860s.

Earning the money in other ways to pay their way to America, Ann Grimshaw Jackson and five of her children, Elizabeth, Martha, Joseph, Samuel, and Nephi, sailed from Liverpool, England, on May 25, 1856, on the old-time sailing ship, "Horizon," with 856 souls aboard, led by Captain Edward Martin.

The voyage across the Atlantic Ocean took about six weeks, and was relatively peaceful and uneventful.  They landed safely at Boston about the first of July and "loaded-out" for Florence, near Omaha, Nebraska, the terminus of the railroad, arriving there on July 8, 1856.  Some of the Jackson family had wanted to call on their brother, John Jackson, who was then living in Boston, but Samuel absolutely refused to hunt for John, for fear he would persuade the family to settle in Boston.  The family went on and did not visit John.

At Florence, they were held up a few days to await the making of hand carts.  After the journey to Utah had commenced, a count was made which showed that the company consisted of seven wagons and 146 hand carts.

The Jackson family had two handcarts, one manned by the two girls, Elizabeth and Martha, and one manned by Joseph and Samuel.  The handcarts rolled along very nicely until the foothills and the mountains and the snow were encountered.  Although we have not been told all the details, there was some trouble encountered while crossing the Indian territories.

The mother, Ann Grimshaw Jackson, was a small women, not much more than a hundred pounds and subject to heart trouble.  She took it upon herself to take care of a son, Nephi, who was about nine years old.  The mother and son would leave in the morning before the handcarts would start.  She was lucky to sometimes to have a rough, coarse biscuit for lunch for her and her son.  After being son the trail for some time, the company would pass them.  The boy would get hungry and fretful and the mother would get so sympathetic that she would give him her part of the biscuit and she would go on the rest of the day without anything at all to eat.  Many times, her son would get so tired the mother would take him on her back and would carry him to rest him.  About sundown, when the company would stop to camp for the night, the girls, Elizabeth and Martha, would walk and run back to meet their mother, not sure of finding them alive, or possibly, finding them lying beside the trail exhausted.

However, they always had good luck in meeting Ann and her son, trudging along.  While the girls were away to meet the mother, the boys were busy setting up the camp.  Their fires were often not very large because of the scarcity of fuel.

Many of the company fell behind and some died along the way. Later, because of early and heavy snows, some of the handcarts had to be abandoned.  On November 13, 1856, Joseph Young and Abel Garr arrived in Salt Lake city and reported that the Martin Handcart Company was stranded in the mountains by the heavy snow.  President Brigham Young dispatched teams, men and supplies, to help the beleaguered Saints.

Before being rescued from the snow and cold by the relief party from Salt Lake City, the family, along with all members of the company suffered many privations.  Samuel often related how he would suck the marrow from the sun-parched bones of the animal carcasses he found along the trail.  He said they also burned the hair off raw hides and roasted the hides before eating them.

When the rescue party arrived, Samuel would pick up the corn slobbered from the mouths of the oxen as they were being fed and would parch this corn to eat.  The rescue party warned the company, who were so weak and hungry, to be very careful and not eat too much too quickly.

On Sunday, November 30, 1856, what was left of the company arrived in Salt Lake City.  This was the Martin Handcart Company.  Brigham Young and the Authorities of the Church were very careful to place the immigrants in settlements where their language was spoken.  The Jackson family was sent to Nephi, Juab County, Utah.

Ann Grimshaw Jackson, after crossing the Plains, made her home in Nephi, Utah, where she lived for the rest of her life.  As she had not heard from her husband, Benjamin, for over seven years, she took action to have him declared legally dead, thus making her a widow.  In those days, windows and widowers where counseled by Church authorities to remarry.  Believing she was a widow, she married a man by the name of Jenkins, with whom she lived happily the rest of her life.

Ann Grimshaw Jackson, was a small woman who, throughout her adult life at least, suffered from heart troubled.  One evening, an acquaintance was crossing a narrow bridge over a mill race. It was dark and he heard splashing in the water below.  When he investigated, he found Ann Grimshaw Jackson, whom he rescued.  While crossing the bridge, she had had a heart failure and had fallen into the mill race.  She continued to live in Nephi and died there on March 27, 1873.  She is buried in Nephi.