Bradford reporter. [volume] (Towanda, Pa.) 1844-1884, 1866-12-06
NUMBER %.
EXTRAORDINARY HISTORY.
LOUISA BLAcKMAN's STORY AS RELATED BY HERSELF.
From the Pittsburg Gazette.1

On Saturday there arrived in our city
from indianapolis, person possessing a
history SO remarkable in its way, that but
few individuals in any region or any time,
have furnished the parallel to it. Indeed
we doubt if any record is known of exper-
fences similar in their cause, progress and
results, to the experiences of the person of
whom we speak She is young girl not
yet seventeen, rather delicate than robust
in physique possessing high degree of
intelligence having manners at once mod
est and winning and before the terrible
ordeal through which, far from scathless,
she has come, was gifted with more beauty
of form and feature, than usually falls to
the lot of womanhood, even at seventeen.
Yet this beautiful girl has gone through
a terrible and sharp experience, the mere
contemplation of which would make the
bravest and hardest pioneer tremble, ap-
palled, and which might safely be promised
to kill the toughest hunter of the Rocky
Mountains or the African juug!es.
Our readers certainly remember the ex-
traordinary case of Louisa Blackman Tor
Blackburn as the name was enormously
spelled in the papers at the time of the
occurrence), who last winter was found
horribly frozen near hay stack, in Law
renee county, in this State, and whose ac-
count Of her sufferings for months previ-
GUS to being found was published through
out the country, and excited universal COM
ment. This girl, on Saturday afternoon,
arrived in the city, and is now stopping at
the Eagle Hotel, on the corner of Second
and Ross streets. We have received the
story of her remarkable suferings from
her own lips since she arrived in the city,
and the facts, as related by her, are sub
stantally as follows
In the year 1860, Thomas Blackman, the
father of Louisa, was living with his fami-
| ly at Jefferson City, Missouri, whittier he
had removed from Joliet, Illinois. Black
man was strongly predisposed to Mormon
ism, his father having lived in that faith
for the last few years of his life, and died
| in it at last. At length, yielding to his in
cllnatlons and the persuasons of others,
Blackman determined to become Saint"
and in the autumn of 1866, took his family
and started with several other families for
Salt Lake City. They reached the chief
city of Mormondom at length, and eventu-
ally Thomas Blackman was received into
the Church of Brigham Young. Sorely
against the wishes and expostulations of
his wife and three daughters the new con-
vert adopted the social customs of his new
belief and added another wife to his house
hold. This new state of things was endur-
ed by the first wife and his children as
long as possible, but at length the indigni-
ties practiced upon them, and the outra-
geous observances surrounding them on
every hand, became intolerable, and they
determined to escape from this empire of
corruption to the bounds of civilization.
Accordingly, in the month of April, 1862,
having braved the denominations of Nor
mondom for year and ha f, they prepar
ed to brave the horrors of the wilderness
as an escape.
One night, in the month mentioned,
when circumstances favored, they passed
the sentinels surrounding the city and en-
tered the wilderness. They were accom-
panied at the start by Mrs Ward, who
proposed to escape with them. This un-
fortunate woman, however, was soon re-
captured and suffered the penalty affixed,
by Mormon law, to the crime Of attempting
to escape---was hubg. Mrs. Blackman
and her three daughters kept on rapidly
for that night and a portion of the next
>
as the "Lion's Mouth" some thirty miles
from the city. There they lay hid for sew
eral days until they judged the heat of the
pursuit was over and they started out
again Louisa states that while they re-
manned concealed in the cave, they more
than once heard the baying of the blood
hounds of the pursuers. They struck out
now across the plain, proposing to reach
some point of civilization on the other side
of the mighty desert. Think of woman
and three helpless girls with only such
food as they could carry in a bundle, with
no sufficient knowledge. of the country be-
fore them, with no guide to direct or coun
sci them and with only the strength of
feeble womanhood to defend them from the
multiplied horrors of their fearful journey,
undertaking passage that men accom-
plish Only in strong and thoroughly equipp-
ed parties
These woman undertook this Journey
Of their progress and the unimaginable
sufferings they endured, there is only one
who knows anything, and that is Louisa,
the single survivor of the feeble party.
She states that when they had been some
three months of their journey her yourg
est sister, girl of some thirteen, died of
starvation and exhaustion. A week later
the elder sister. aged about fourteen, also
died-starved to death Louisa was strong-
er, healthier and more robust than the
others, and the hardships of the Journey
made less impression on her.
! Leaving the corpses of the dead girls up
ON the plain, the mother and her one child
continued ON their weary way of increas-
ing terrors. Their little stock of food had
been exhausted in the first few days, and
they could get nothing but such precarious
subsistence as the prairie afforded They
had brought plenty of money with them,
but what mines of gold would it not have
taken to purchase a meal in the midst of
that world of desolation They had bro't
a bow and arrow with them, and with these
they killed an occasional bird or gopher
which they devoured raw. Now and then
also, they encountered some edible roots
These were their feasts, with intervals OF
fasting, days in length between. Atlength
some two months after the death of heI
children Mrs. Blackman also lay down and
died, first making Louisa promise that she