Question: Where did George R. Grant eventually settle after serving in Brigham Young’s Vanguard Company in 1847?
Answer: George Robert Grant was born on July 14, 1820, in Reading, Stuben, New York, to Loring and Elizabeth Grant, the fourth of thirteen children. His father was a Methodist Elder.
George married Mary Dorsey Barney on September 27, 1840 in Homer, Michigan. They never had any children. George and Mary became members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in February 1845 and moved to Nauvoo. George worked on the temple and received his endowments there on January 10, 1846, and was sealed to Mary on January 31, 1846. George and Mary left Nauvoo with the Saints in 1846 and ended up in Council Bluffs, Pottawattamie, Iowa.
In the spring of 1847, George was asked to be in Brigham Young’s Vanguard Company headed West. George was in the 4th Ten led by Luke S. Johnson. He is noted as one who captured a young eagle on the way. George returned to Winter Quarters that fall and was one of the signers of a petition to the government requesting permission to establish a post office on Pottawattamie lands.
On December 10, 1847, George married Mary Helen Van Orden at Council Bluffs. Their first two children were born at Council Bluffs. It appears that George and his first wife, Mary Dorsey Barney, were divorced, as Mary married James Kellog in November 1853 in Connecticut.
George returned west with his wife and two children in the Aaron Johnson Company in the summer of 1850 and established a home in Kaysville, Davis County, Utah in 1852.
In 1855, George was among a group sent to establish the Salmon River Mission in Idaho. They preached to the Flathead, Bannock and Shoshone Indians and attempted to teach them farming and how to build houses. The mission was successful for two years but in the winter of 1857-58 the mission was closed when other whites influenced the Indians to be hostile to the missionaries.
On December 17, 1857, George married a widow, Mary Adelia Carbine, in polygamy, in Kaysville. She had four children from previous marriages. They had two children born in Kaysville (1858 and 1860).
In 1861, George moved to Carson City, Nevada, where he attempted to establish a shipping business. When he moved to Nevada, he and Mary Adelia Carbine separated, and she stayed in Utah where in 1862 she married William Warren Taylor.
About 1863, when that business failed, George decided to move on to Sacramento, California. He and his wife then moved to Placer County, California. Placer County is included in the Greater Sacramento metropolitan area. Here George and Mary Helen had three more children, making a total of eleven children for them.
George died July 22, 1889, in Rocklin, Placer, California, at age 69. He was buried in the Rocklin Cemetery. Mary died in 1925 at age 93 and was buried in an unmarked grave in the Rocklin Cemetery. Only four of her children survived her.
Source: “Biographies of the Original 1847 Pioneer Company,’ Church News, Updated, 14 October 2009; Census Records, FamilySearch.org; FindAGrave.com
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