george washington bankhead

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Children:

James (1845-deceased)

Samuel (1848-deceased)

Jane (1850-deceased)

At this point, little is known about George Washington Bankhead family. As noted above, family information is incomplete and we have not found documentation on his wife and family migrating west.

The Bankhead family was from Marion County, Mississippi. George's older brother, John, had served as one of the militiamen in Nauvoo, IL in 1845. In January 1846, Brigham Young asked John Brown to form a company of southern men to travel west in 1846 and to meet Brigham Young and the saints along the Platte River. These men were to help provide security for the leaders of the Church who had intended to migrate west during the summer of 1846. The southern group was to organize quickly and not bring families, unless they were ready to travel on short notice. Thus, John Brown, George Bankhead, and others traveled without their families. The John Brown company never encountered the main body of saints along the Platte River in 1846, as the main body ended up spending the winter of 1846-47 at Winter Quarters, IA, and then went west in 1847. Several families who were prepared, traveled west with the John Brown company in 1846, the majority of which wintered in Pueblo (now Colorado). This company of pioneers is the main group referred to as the Mississippi Saints.

After traveling west with the Mississippi Saints that spent the winter of 1846 in Pueblo, George Washington Bankhead and six other men returned east under the leadership of John Brown. The men who returned east had largely traveled west to serve as a security team to protect Brigham and other Church leaders who had originally intended to migrate west in 1846. These brethren left their families in the east, as instructed, and returned home in the latter part of 1846 with the intent to bring their families west in 1847. In the case of the Bankhead family, they stayed in the south in 1847 and then traveled west to the Salt Lake Valley in 1848 in the H. Kimball company.

George and John's father, John Black Bankhead (1780-1842) passed away before the migration west. The father had twelve enslaved persons who migrated west to the Salt Lake Valley with George Washington Bankhead, his older brother John Henderson Bankhead, John's wife, Nancy Coleman Bankhead, and their son John. Those are the only documented Bankhead family members that we currently have listed that migrated west to Utah in the broader context the group known as the Mississippi Saints. (Based on information compiled by Kristine Forbes.)