Llanbeblig
William Owens married Eleanor Evans in Llanbeblig, Carnarvonshire, on 25 February 1820. The family were members of the Baptist Church, although William was not an active member. They had eleven children. In 1848, after hearing the missionaries, the family joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and were baptized in Blaenau Ffestiniog.
Not long afterwards, William made arrangements for the family to emigrate to America. Prior to leaving, four of their children died: John, age 22; James, age 20; Magdalena, age 17, who had married Evan Evans the previous year; and Catherine, age 12. In the spring of 1849 the remaining members of the family left for Liverpool in the hopes of uniting with the Saints in Utah.
This was a brave decision, especially because William Owens was an invalid and Eleanor would be in full charge of rearing their remaining seven children and providing for all their physical needs as they crossed the ocean and then prepared to cross the plains. What testimony could more loudly proclaim their devotion to and belief in truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ than the decision of this family to gather to Zion.
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Seven weeks at sea, then the rivers
For seven weeks the family sailed across the Atlantic Ocean until they arrived in New Orleans. From New Orleans they started up the Mississippi River and the Missouri River to St. Joseph, Missouri, on the steamship St. Croix. En route they contracted cholera, which led to the death of six of the family members.
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Eleven days
On 7 May 1849 Jane, age 6, died and was buried on the banks of the Mississippi River. William, age 16, died on 8 May 1849. Alice, age 10, died on the same day as her brother. Eleanor Owens, the mother of the children, died on 9 May 1849. William Owens, the father, died on 12 May 1849, and Richard, age 16, died on 18 May 1849.
The deaths occurred in tragically rapid succession: Jane died on Monday, William and Alice on Tuesday, the mother on Wednesday, and the father on Friday, all of the same week, and Richard died on Friday of the following week.
Only three family members were able to be united with the Saints in Utah: Cadwallader, Margaret and Owen.
The three who arrived
The family
Cholera killed more Welsh emigrants on the American rivers than the Atlantic ever did. The 1849 epidemic ran up the Mississippi with the steamboat traffic, and the companies that landed at New Orleans that spring met it head-on. The Peters and Eames families, who sailed on the same tide, tell the same story with different names. See 1849 in the timeline →
The marriage at Llanbeblig in 1820 and the sequence of deaths in May 1849 come from the family history, which records them day by day; they should be confirmed against the Llanbeblig register and the 1849 emigration records. The vessel is the open question. The family names the St. Croix, while other 1849 material links the same company to the Mameluke; the archive keeps both and merges neither. The ages given for William and Richard are both 16 in the source, which needs checking. The steamer photograph is a vessel of the type and period, not an identified image of the boat they boarded.