Description

The Big Feat of My Life

In the cold fall of 1856, there were many men who went out on the trail to help bring in the Willie, Martin, Hunt, and Hodgett emigrant companies. John Riggs was one of them. His group met the suffering emigrants near Fort Bridger and assisted them on toward the Valley. As they journeyed west, it began again to snow in Echo Canyon and dropped about three feet. The train of about seventy-five wagons struggled through the deep and drifting snow. Realizing that if it was this bad in the lowlands what would the top of Big Mountain look like? John later said,

“I went ahead on horseback, leaving the rest of the relief party behind. It was very difficult, but I managed to struggle through the snow to the top of the Big Mountain. I was quite alone, but here met two men, with six yoke of oxen, who had come up on the west side of the mountain. They had come from Provo to assist the hand-cart company. When I told them their teams were needed at the farthest end of the train, they said they would go back to their camp and remain until the next day.”

John managed to persuade the men not to go back but to follow him. Together they descended the mountain until they met the advanced wagons. John said,

“I realized that many of the people would perish if left on the mountain that night. My plan was to take the oxen and hitch on to the first two wagons and pull them through the snow, and thus open the road and enable the whole train to pass through. My advice was followed, and we succeeded in getting the entire train over by ten o’clock at night. The company then passed on quickly to a campground, where there was plenty of firewood prepared by the men who had been left behind.”

By the time John and the men finished the day’s labors on Big Mountain, the cut through the snowbank at the top of Big Mountain was 10-20 feet deep. So deep, John said, “You could lay a pole across the chasm and a covered wagon could easily pass under it.”

John went on to a very useful and productive life and yet he would always consider his service in 1856 as “The big feat of my life.” One writer said of him, “John had a tender heart for all and was known for assisting the poor and unfortunate.”

Perhaps it was the tragic events of John’s childhood that rendered him so. When John was just a boy of five, his mother tragically passed away.

“Fresh in my memory is the death of my dear mother,” John said…. There was a dreadfully sad scene among her poor children following her death. It was simply heartrending to hear little sister Phoebe, only two years old, cry out for her mother as if her little heart would break. We were staying at a neighbor’s when father came and told us the sad news. He wept most bitterly; for he realized all the sorrow of the situation.”

Many years later as a father himself, John would remember, “crying so hard for his mother and how a kiss from her would have softened the trials of his younger years.”

John’s mother was Julia Clapp Murdock who passed away in 1831, shortly after giving birth to twins. John Riggs is John Riggs Murdock. We all know the story of how those twins were taken and raised by Joseph and Emma Smith, but what of John, the oldest son? He became an orphan, passed from family to family, becoming as one writer said, it, “anyone’s boy.” Perhaps that is why John was there in 1856. Perhaps that is why his compassion for the unfortunate was always there and made him “beloved” by all.

Sources:

http://www.tellmystorytoo.com/member_pdfs/john-riggs-murdock_413_239.pdf

https://www.familysearch.org/photos/artifacts/126615253?p=49624100&returnLabel=John%20Riggs%20Murdock%20(KWVG-GRF)&returnUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.familysearch.org%2Ftree%2Fperson%2Fmemories%2FKWVG-GRF

http://www.tellmystorytoo.com/member_pdfs/john-riggs-murdock_413_239.pdf

https://www.familysearch.org/photos/artifacts/4896578?p=49624100&returnLabel=John%20Riggs%20Murdock%20(KWVG-GRF)&returnUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.familysearch.org%2Ftree%2Fperson%2Fmemories%2FKWVG-GRF

https://www.familysearch.org/photos/artifacts/126615253?p=49624100&returnLabel=John%20Riggs%20Murdock%20(KWVG-GRF)&returnUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.familysearch.org%2Ftree%2Fperson%2Fmemories%2FKWVG-GRF