by Grace Oliver

          Forced to leave Illinois due to persistent harassment climaxing in the assassination of their prophets Joseph and Hiram Smith, the Mormons decided to leave the United States.  Striking westward from Nauvoo in 1846, the lead elements established winter quarters on the bluffs above the west bank of the Missouri River, a site later to become Florence, Nebraska.  The ensuing winter caused much suffering and loss of life to the Mormon vanguard.  However, in the spring of 1847 some 150 persons under the leadership of Brigham Young were selected to find a home for their people.  That summer the trail blazers set forth toward an unknown location in Mexican territory.  Their course in Nebraska followed the Platte River from Fremont to Columbus where it branched off along the Loup River to the west edge of Merrick County, then south to the Platte, and from there on the north side of the Platte and North Platte Rivers into Wyoming.  Later contingents followed a shorter route, taking them along the north side of the Platte Rivers all the way through Nebraska.

          The most characteristic way to travel along the Mormon Trail was by covered wagon, although some of the Mormons, too poor to afford wagons, moved all their possessions across the plains and mountains to Utah in two-wheeled carts drawn by hand.  To protect themselves from Indians and other dangers, most of the emigrants went west in large companies.  Their day's activities began at sun-up or before.  The men corraled the oxen, which had been turned out to graze overnight, while the women prepared breakfast over campfires.  After breakfast, the men yoked the oxen, hitched them to the wagons, and were ready for the captain's call to march when each wagon took its place in line.  With only a brief meal and rest at noon, the wagon train made about fifteen miles a day.  At the end of the day, the wagons formed into a great circle, and a guard was posted throughout the night.  It was to join in this adventure that the Oliver family came to Nebraska territory on their way to Zion.

          Edward Oliver, Sr., his wife Sarah and their seven children, converts to the Mormon faith, left their home in Manchester, England, for Salt Lake City via the port of Liverpool. Their children were Edward, Jr., age 28; James D., 21; Sarah Ann, 13; John, 12; Eliza, 9; Ephriam, 8; and Jane, a baby. James D. was the only married child, with a wife and one son Harry, 6 months old.  They arrived in the United States in April 1860.  At Florence (the old winter quarters) a few miles north of Omaha, the Oliver family purchased a traveling outfit for emigrants, which included two yoke of oxen, a wagon, and two cows.  With numerous other Mormon families having the same destination, they took the Mormon Trail up the valley of the Platte River.  About the 4th of July, 1860, the axle of their wagon gave way and the Olivers were compelled to halt for repairs at a point known as Wood River Center, while their immediate traveling companions continued the journey.  The Olivers took their problem to the ranch of Joseph E. Johnson, a resourceful Mormon living in the area.

          Joseph Johnson, husband of two or three wives and father of numerous children, was postmaster, merchant, blacksmith, wagon maker, baker, editor and publisher of a newspaper called The Huntsman's Echo.  He was very fond of flowers and cultivated a beautiful garden.  The wagon shop of Mr. Johnson contained no seasoned wood suitable for an axle, and so from the trees along the Wood River was cut an ash from which an axle was hewn and fitted to the wagon, and the family again took to the trail.
 
         Ten miles had not yet been traveled when the green axle began to bend under the load, the wheels ceased to track, and the party could not proceed.  In the family council which followed, the father suggested that they try to arrange with other emigrants to carry their equipment and thus continue their journey.  The mother thought they should return to Wood River Center (now Shelton) and arrange to spend the winter.  She said it was beautiful country with an abundance of wood, good water, grass and hay for the cattle.  As all the children agreed with their mother, the family returned to a point about a mile west of Wood River Center, where they constructed a log hut with a sod and dirt roof in which they spent the winter.  With the coming of spring, the father, devoted to the Mormon faith, urged that they continue on to Salt Lake, but to this neither the mother nor any of the children would consent.  So the father, with the 22-year-old maid who had accompanied the family from England, traveled on to Utah where they married and had a family of six daughters and one son.  Edward, Sr. farmed near Salt Lake City, and family tradition tells us that he founded the town of Bountiful at or near the location of his farm, where he lived until his death in 1876.

          Sarah Holland Oliver thus became the head of the family, and the Oliver homestead was established on the banks of the Wood River. She proved to be a woman of energy and force of character and, with her family, was soon engaged in raising corn and vegetables, selling the surplus to the emigrants along the trail, and at Fort Kearny twenty miles distant.  She endured all the hardships, privations, work and fear that was the lot of early settlers of the frontier, yet she never turned a hungry emigrant from her humble door.  Sarah Oliver, while she had no medical training, was ever ready to go to the help of those in need, and often ministered to the sick, weary and footsore travelers along the trail.  When rumor came of Indians on the warpath, her children took turns on the housetop as lookout for the dreaded savages.  In the Indian uprising of 1864, many of the people left Wood River Center, traveling as far east as Iowa, and some of them stayed away a year for safety's sake. Many of the men who left returned to harvest crops in the fall.

          In the years to come Sarah witnessed the building of the Union Pacific Railroad past the homestead, the entrance of Nebraska into the Union in 1867, and the beginnings of the extensive settlement and development of central Nebraska.  Here her family put down its roots. 

          The eldest son, Edward, Jr., married, and for two years worked for Mr. Johnson in Wood River Center, and later established his own general store when Mr. Johnson moved on to Utah in August of 1861. Edward, Jr. had no children.  James D. with his wife and child established their home one mile west of the rest of the family, living in a dugout until they could construct a house.  Seven more children were born to him and his wife.  Sarah Ann married Joseph Owen, whose family came from England in 1863.  They settled in Buffalo County, and were the parents of seven children.  Mr. Owen was active in early affairs of the county, and served as treasurer of School District No. 1 for 46 years.  John was appointed sheriff when Buffalo County was organized in 1870.  He was elected to that office at the first election, and lost his life in October of 1871 at the age of 23 in the performance of the duties of that office.

          Eliza, at 20 and unmarried, died in 1871, the same year that her mother and her brother John died.  All three were buried on the Oliver homestead.  Ephriam, who was eight years old when the family settled here, married Dorothy Fieldgrove, and they raised a family of ten boys and one girl.  His son, Dewey S. Oliver, is the only member of this family now living [in 1978].  He resides in Shelton with his daughter Shirley.  Jane, the youngest, was the only one to leave Buffalo County.  She married Jacob Rice and moved to Spokane, Washington, where they reared a family of two girls and five boys.
 
         When Sarah Oliver died, her youngest son Ephriam, who was better known as Bob, inherited the homestead.  In the 1890's he built a beautiful farm home where his son's widow, Mrs. Vernon Oliver, now lives.  In early 1900's the Union Pacific Railroad designated this as The Typical Nebraska Ranch Home, and an illustration of it appeared in Union Pacific folders of that day.  Many descendants of Sarah Oliver live in Buffalo County today, largely in the Shelton area.  She is remembered by all as a courageous and persevering woman, who suffered and survived the pioneer hardships, and saw her family grow up in this "beautiful country" on the east edge of Buffalo County.

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