165th Anniversary of the Mormon Battalion

monument near Albuquerque, NM

Two Cramer ancestors served in the 1846 Mormon Battalion, William Muir and Orin Hatch.  These men made the months-long, two-thousand-mile trek from Iowa to California, the longest march in U.S. military history.  William Muir completed the march barefoot, and was a sergeant in company A.  At age sixteen, Orin enlisted in Company C as its next-to-youngest member to take the place of his sick elder brother, Ransom. His other brother Meltiah was solemnly charged by their father to take care of young Orin.  One source said that young Orin was a bugle boy with the Battalion.

As the Battalion marched to California, Orin fell deathly ill with scurvy.  For three days, he was left behind on the trail to die, and at the end of each day’s march, Meltiah retraced his steps at night to bring his brother back to camp.  Finally an officer allowed Orin to ride on a horse, but he was so weak he had to be tied in place.

The Battalion raised the American flag in San Diego and Orin was one of the five men selected to go into the timbers to secure the pole.  The Hatch boys and William Muir stayed in California through the winter and were there when gold was discovered.  Family legend says that as they walked back east, Meltiah’s shoes wore out and Orin let him wear his, walking barefoot into the Salt Lake Valley.  They then walked back east to Missouri and Iowa to help their families move to Utah.

monument at This is the Place, Utah