I can better stand the hardships of the journey than the anxieties for an absent husband. With her baby on her hip, Nancy, who had just turned 18 a few days earlier, became the first woman, other than Native Americans, to walk on Utah soil. The year was and the Kelsey clan, often on the move, once again had itching feet.
A letter from a Dr. Marsh in California praising the new land excited many Missourians yearning for a great adventure. However, when spring came only a small group gathered at Sapling Grove near Weston, Missouri, to actually make the trip. Among them were several members of the extended Kelsey family, including Nancy, her husband Ben, and their daughter Martha Ann. Known as the Bartleson-Bidwell company, this group followed dim traces of the new Oregon Trail.
Then they were on their own. Nancy would also earn the distinction of being the first white woman to cross the Sierra Nevada. After crossing South Pass in Wyoming, some families in the company began to worry about going to California. No one knew the route, and wagon trains had never gone there before.
Oregon, at the end of a known road and more settled every year, sounded safer. By the time they reached Soda Springs, all the families had decided to abandon the California dream—all, that is, but Ben and Nancy. Nancy bid farewell to her in-laws and became the only woman among the 31 men who turned south into the unknown country that was to eventually become Utah. Surely it was rash for a woman to venture on so perilous a journey, but that did not seem to occur to Nancy. Most of the young men were adventurous and willing to take risks, but this was no ordinary lark for a young woman in The travelers knew absolutely nothing of the terrain ahead.
In fact, they were so ignorant of western geography that some had brought boat-building equipment so that when they came upon the Great Salt Lake they could build a boat and float down its outlet to the ocean! The advice they got from Fort Hall, where some of the men had gone for provisions, was no better than their own strange notions.
