Thomas Grover

THOMAS GROVER—SUPERINTENDENT OF FERRY

Our Pioneer Heritage

“The First Company to Enter Salt Lake Valley”

            Thomas Grover was undoubtedly selected to accompany the pioneer company because of his wide experience with boats, fro President bRigham Young knew there would be need of experienced ferrymen in crossing the rivers between them and their final destination.  Mr. Grover was born July 22, 1807 in Whitehall, New York, the son of Thomas and Polly Spaulding Grover.  His father died when he was an infant leaving his mother to rear and provide for a large family.  When Thomas was twelve years of age he worked as a cabin boy on a boat on the Erie Canal, and twelve years later he became the captain of the boat.  In 1828 he married Caroline Whiting, the daughter of Nathaniel Whiting and Mercey Young.  A few years later he moved his wife and daughter to Freedom, New York and it was here he heard and accepted the teachings of the Mormon Elders.

            When the pioneer company reached the north Fork of the Platte River, Thomas Grover was appointed superintendent of the ferry by order of President Brigham Young.  Those who were appointed to stay with the ferry were called together by President Young, namely, Captain Thomas Grover, John Higbee, Appleton M. Harmon, William Empey, Luke Johnson, Edmund Ellsworth, F.M. Pomeroy, James Davenport and Benjamin F. Stewart.  They received verbal instructions, also instructions in writing to which they all agreed:

                        North Fork of the Platte River, Upper Ferry, June 18, 1847,

                        125 miles west of Fort Laramie.

            Instructions to the above names are repeated, brethren, as you are about to stop at this place for a little season, for the purpose of passing emigrants over the river and assisting the Saints, we have thought fit to appoint Thomas Grover, Superintendent of the Ferry, and of your company.  If you approve, we want you to agree that you will follow his counsel implicitly and without gainsaying and we desire that you should be agreed in all your operations, acting in concert, keeping together continually and not scattering to hunt.

            At your leisure, put yourselves up a comfortable room that will afford yourselves and horses protection against the Indians should a war party pass this way.  But first of all see that your boats are properly secured by fastening raw hides over the tops of the canoes or some better process.  Complete the landings and be careful of lives and property of all you labor for, remembering that you are responsible for all accidents through your carelessness or negligence and that you retain not that which belongs to the traveler.

For one family wagon, you will charge $1.50, payment in flour and provisions as stated prices or $3.00 in cash.  You had better take young stock at a fair valuation instead of cash and a team if you should want the same to remove.  Should emigration cease before our brethren arrive, cache your effects and return to Laramie and wait their arrival, and come on with them to the place of location.  We promise you that the superintendent of the ferry should never lack wisdom or knowledge to devise and counsel you in righteousness and for your best good, if you will always be agreed and in all humility, watch and pray without ceasing.  When our emigration companies arrived, if the river is fordable, ferry them and let them who are able pay a reasonable price.  The council of their camp will decide who are able to pay.

Let a strict account be kept of every man’s labor, also all wagons and teams ferried and all receipts and expenditures allowing each man according to his labor and justice, and if anyone feels aggrieved let him not murmur, but be patient until you come up and let the council decide.  The way not to be aggrieved is for every man to love his brother as himself.

            The following is a copy of a letter sent by Thomas Grover’s son to the Semi-Centennial Committee telling of his father’s experiences at the ferry and later life.

Our family crossed the Mississippi River in February, 1846 and traveled with the Saints to Winter Quarters now Florence, Nebraska where father, during the winter of “46-“47 done the butchering for the Saints and in the spring of “47 he was chosen one of the pioneers and went with that company as far as the North Platte where a stop was made.  President Young called a meeting for the purpose of devising means of crossing the river, in this meeting a plan was put forth which father did not think would work and he left the meeting and went to bed.  At the close of the meeting Stephen Markham, father’s bunk mate, came to bed, and one of the brethren came with him to hear what father said of the plan.  Father told Marcus he had forgotten more about water than President Young knew.  This man who came to the wagon with Marcus went to president Young with what father said and the President called father to account.

The next morning father told him he had forgotten more about water than he ever knew.  Father had been a canal boat captain all his life and knew nothing but water.  President Young rigged their ferry and started it, when President Kimball standing with his hand on father’s shoulders said, “Brother Thomas, it runs nice.”  “Yes,” said father, “but when it strikes the current it will go under.”  He had hardly spoken when it when under.  “Now,” said President Young, “Brother Grover, my plan has failed, what is yours?”  Father said, “ I will take two four-mule teams and six men and go to the grove of timer yonder and I will get two trees and bring them here and will hew them out canoe fashion and lash them together, and tomorrow morning at daylight will have a boat that will carry us safe across the river.”  President Young told him to get his men and teams and be off.  He started with the men and when they arrived at the grove they made the selection of the trees and on getting near they found them surrounded with rattle snakes and the killed snakes for three hours before they could get near the trees; but they got them down and went to camp and the next morning the boat was in the water as he said it would be.

After the camp had all crossed the President left father and nine others there to run the ferry and father remained until the company came which his family was in.  We were in General C. C. Rich’s company.

We arrived in Salt Lake Valley October 3, 1847.  We remained in the city that winter, then in the spring of 1848, we located on the creek where Centerville now is, then to Farmington in Davis county on Devil Creek.  I remember seeing the Indian ponies feeding by the side of our corn and did not eat the corn.  In the fall of 1848 father was sent by the President to California to settle some business for the Church.  He went by way of lower California and settled the business; then went into the mines until the fall of 1849, when he returned in company with Thomas Rhodes and others.  My father and the others turned over to the Church on their arrival a half bushel measure full of gold.  We have lived in the valley since that time.

In October, 1840, Caroline Whiting died leaving six children.  On February 20, 1841, he married Eliz Nickerson Hubbard.  Hannah Tupper became his wife December 17, 1844, and shortly after he married her sister, Laduska Tupper.  The first winter was spent in Salt Lake, but the following spring he moved to Duel Creek or Centerville; thence to Farmington.  In the fall of 1848, as he, and thirty other men, were starting for California, he was asked to use his influence with this company to pay for 500 head of Texas cattle which had been brought to Utah “to help keep the Mormons from starvation.”  This he did, each man agreeing to pay $4.00 a head for the cattle after they had earned it in California.  He was also asked by President Young to help settle the accounts of the Saints who had come around the Horn on the shop Brooklyn.  In 1856 he married Emma and Elizabeth Walker, young English converts. He served three years in the Utah Legislature, part of the time was during its session in Fillmore.  Mr. Grover held many high civic and church offices before his death February 20, 1886.