Description

I Must Freeze and Die

January 1856, Salt Lake City, Utah. Twenty-three-year-old Marriner Wood Merrill was hauling logs out of North Mill Creek Canyon. The logs were used to make houses. It was a cold winter, the temperature at times -20-30 degrees. On one of those very cold days Marriner was in the canyon alone. He had cut the five logs he needed and had them placed side by side in preparation for loading on his bobsleigh. He got the first log on the sleigh and turned to load the others. He described what happened next.

The one I had on the sled slipped off like it was shot out of a gun and struck me in the hollow of the legs and threw me forward on my face across the four logs lying on the ground, or ice. In falling, my hand spike, which I had used in loading the first log, slipped out of my hand and out of my reach. And thus I found myself with my body lying face downwards across the four logs and the fifth log lying across my legs, and I was pinned to the ground with a heavy red pine log 10 inches through at the large end and 22 feet long lying across my legs. And there I was with no visible means to extricate myself and there was no aid at hand, as no one but myself was in the canyon that day. I made up my mind that I must freeze and die all alone in the mountains of Utah. Many serious thoughts passed through my mind, as you may imagine. In falling on the logs my breast and stomach were hurt and it was difficult for me to breathe. I did not conceive what to do under the trying ordeal, but concluded to ask the Lord to help me, which I did in earnest prayer. After calling upon the Lord for some time I began to make an effort to extricate myself but all in vain, as I could not move the log that was lying on me. I, however, continued my efforts until I was exhausted and lost all recollection of my situation. And the first I remembered afterward I was one mile down the canyon sitting on my load of logs and the oxen going gently along. My overcoat by the side of me, and feeling very cold…. I looked at the load and found I had the five logs on the sled, three on the bottom and two on the top, nicely bound, my ax sticking in the top log, my whip lying on the load by my side, my sheepskin (with the wool on, which I used to sit on) also on the load and I sitting on it. I made an effort to get off the load and put on my overcoat but found I could not do it, as I was so sore in my legs and breast that it was with great difficulty that I could move at all. …I was confined to the house for some days before I could get around again. Who it was that extricated me from under the log, loaded my sled, hitched my oxen to it, and placed me on it, I cannot say, as I do not now, or even then at the time, remember seeing anyone, and I know for a surety no one was in the canyon that day but myself. Hence, I must give the Lord, or my Guardian Angel, credit for saving my life in extricating me from so perilous a situation.

Source: Utah Pioneer and Apostle Marriner Wood Merrill and His Family, edited by Melvin Clarence Merrill, 1937, pages 44-45