Donna, The story your granddaughter told you is about the Utter-Van Ornum Massacre on the Oregon Trail in September, 1860 by the Snake River in what is now southwestern Idaho. A party composed of 8 wagons with 44 people was attacked by hostile Indians. Almost two months later, a rescue party found 10 survivors clinging to life in shelters nearly 100 miles from where the wagon train was attacked. The surviovors had resorted to canabalism to stay alive. Elijah Palmer Utter and his family was one of the wagons travelling in the wagon train. Elijah descends from my 9th great-grandfather, Thomas Utter, Sr. There has been a book written about it and in Wild West magazine, with much information found on the internet about the massacre. Karen Utter Jennings <CAKyvwmBAXH=bqDHHc5bukv_tGqwnnkQrQJWszdF_g_Z6Z15nTw@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 List readers, yesterday on the phone my son told me that his wife and sons were on a trip and so he asked his five year daughter where she would like to go while they were gone. Get this - she said she wanted to go on a bicycle ride to the cemetery near the house they just bought. It is located in the historical district and they are going to moving there in a few days. Here is the background story about that - Henry Ford's brother and sister-in-law built the house and it was built in 1913. So - on the phone she told me about a person buried there that the Indians had killed and about an entire family that died in the 1860's. She said that there were a lot of old graves there dating back to the 1860's and 1870's. She explained that some people died before Idaho was a state and that some people died while traveling the Oregon Trail. She explained how the stones looked and about the angles craved on the markers of children and babies. She said that went I come to visit her in Boise that she will take me there and show me all these things. It sounds to me like she had a history lesson while there. I dream and hope that someday I can take her to a few of the Barry County cemeteries and show her where her ancestors are buried - who knows maybe even tell her some stories about them. It sounds like a genealogist was born yesterday, or - at least there is one in the making, and so I had to share it with you. Donna Cooper

How is this Utter related to our Barry County Utters? Donna Cooper On Fri, Sep 9, 2011 at 6:42 PM, Karen Utter-Jennings <kutterjennings24@joplin.com> wrote: > Donna, > The story your granddaughter told you is about the Utter-Van Ornum Massacre > on the Oregon Trail in September, 1860 by the Snake River in what is now > southwestern Idaho. A party composed of 8 wagons with 44 people was attacked > by hostile Indians. Almost two months later, a rescue party found 10 > survivors clinging to life in shelters nearly 100 miles from where the wagon > train was attacked. The surviovors had resorted to canabalism to stay alive. > > > Elijah Palmer Utter and his family was one of the wagons travelling in the > wagon train. Elijah descends from my 9th great-grandfather, Thomas Utter, > Sr.  There has been a book written about it and in Wild West magazine, with > much information found on the internet about the massacre. > > Karen Utter Jennings > > >        <CAKyvwmBAXH=bqDHHc5bukv_tGqwnnkQrQJWszdF_g_Z6Z15nTw@mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > List readers, yesterday on the phone my son told me that his wife and sons > were on a trip and so he asked his five year daughter where she would like > to go while they were gone. Get this - she said she wanted to go on a > bicycle ride to the cemetery near the house they just bought. It is located > in the historical district and they are going to moving there in a few days. > Here is the background story about that - Henry Ford's brother and > sister-in-law built the house and it was built in 1913. > > So - on the phone she told me about a person buried there that the Indians > had killed and about an entire family that died in the 1860's. > She said that there were a lot of old graves there dating back to the 1860's > and 1870's. She explained that some people died before Idaho was a state and > that some people died while traveling the Oregon Trail. She explained how > the stones looked and about the angles craved on the markers of children and > babies. She said that went I come to visit her in Boise that she will take > me there and show me all these things. > > It sounds to me like she had a history lesson while there. I dream and hope > that someday I can take her to a few of the Barry County cemeteries and show > her where her ancestors are buried - who knows maybe even tell her some > stories about them. > > It sounds like a genealogist was born yesterday, or - at least there is one > in the making, and so I had to share it with you. > > Donna Cooper > > > > The list-admin is Donna Cooper, address - (thedonnacooper@gmail.com) > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to MOBARRY-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >