Location:
The Needles
Distance: 1,236 miles from Nauvoo

This is a very prominent rock formation near the Utah-Wyoming border. It was near here that Brigham Young became ill with what was probably Rocky Mountain Spotted Tick Fever during the advance push into the Salt Lake Valley. As a result, he entered the Valley in a bed in the back of Wilford Woodruff's wagon, two days after the scouting party.

William Clayton

12 July 1847

"President [Brigham] Young was taken very sick awhile before we halted. After resting two hours the camp moved on again, except President Young and Kimball's wagons, who concluded to remain there today on account of the President's sickness" (William Clayton's Journal [1921], 291).

Albert Rockwood

14 July 1847

"Br. Young is a little better. The fever rages harder than ever on me. Br. Lorenzo Young and many others look upon me as dangerously ill. I so considered myself and so told the brethren that if no relief came in the hour, they might dig a hole to put me in. . . . Rested some this night" (Albert Perry Rockwood, Diary, 14 July 1847, Family and Church History Department Archives, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints).

Journal photographs courtesy of Infobases, Inc.