EB: After resting a few weeks [until January 1848], I got wagons and a harness, hitched up my mules and went to Missouri to work for provisions. I found employment splitting rails for fencing. I earned a fat hog and some corn and returned home. We moved across the river to Mesquito Creek. Sister Abbott moved with us. She had two small boys and we put in crops of corn together. The next spring Mother Abbott emigrated to Salt Lake City. I assisted her to a yoke of oxen.

In the fall of 1848, Abigail and her children arrived in Salt Lake City and moved immediately to Ogden. Captain James Brown, who was Abigail's husband through a polygamous marriage, provided her with a ten-acre site on what was later called Washington Avenue. There he built for her a three-room log house with a dirt roof.

EB: The following year [1849] received from James Brown, the money for the same [yoke of oxen]. With this I bought cattle to assist me to emigrate next season.

[2nd child] Emily Bunker
Born: March 1, 1849 at Mesquito Creek, Iowa
Mother: Emily Abbott [2nd child]

EB: I also received three months extra pay from the government and a land warrant which I sold for $150. The emigration to California began next year and corn brought from $.25 to $1.50 per bushel. I had raised a good crop and this assisted me very much to obtain my outfit.

In the spring of 1850, I started to Salt Lake Valley in Captain Johnson's hundred and Matthew Caldwell's fifty, and I was captain of a ten. We followed up the route of the California emigrants on the south side of the Platt River. Nothing of importance happened until we came in the cholera district where the emigrants had died in great numbers and were buried by the roadside.

We found one man unburied lying in the brush. He was given a burial by our company. Our camp was stricken and 18 out of the hundred died from the effects of the cholera. My wife and daughter, Emily, who had been born to us the first of March, 1849, on Mesquite Creek, Iowa, were taken very sick, but through the powers of faith and good nursing they soon recovered. At the end of three months we reached Salt Lake Valley, our haven of rest, September 1, 1850.

With a well-provisioned outfit, his wife and children around him, and a journey that had to seem mild in comparison to the Battalion march, Edward must have been very positive about the prospects ahead. As the Bunkers traveled in the wagon train to Salt Lake, they met and became fast friends with William Thomas and Sarah Ann Browning Lang. Both couples had two children and a lot in common.

EB: I settled in Ogden City, took up a farm about a mile from the city on what was then known as Canfield Creek. I built a house of three log rooms and fenced my farm the first year. William Lang owned a farm adjoining mine, also James Brown.

It may be of interest to know a little about the place they selected as their home. Ogden was named in behalf of Peter Skene Ogden, a leader in the trapping and fur trading business with the Hudson's Bay Company. He first visited the area in June of 1826. Trapping continued heavily until about 1840 when the bottom fell out of the beaver market and most of the mountain men withdrew into the hills. In 1843, John Charles Freemont encamped on the Weber River and rowed down it in a rubber boat to the Great Salt Lake, accompained by the famous Kit Carson and three others.

In late 1844 or 1845, Miles Goodyear established on the site of Ogden the only year-long adobe of a white man in the entire territory. Goodyear's fort consisted of a stockade of pickets that surrounded some log buildings and corrals close to the Weber River. It was 35 miles north of the Salt Lake valley on a direct line to Fort Hall, where the Emigrant Trail to California passed.

Shortly after the Mormons emigrated to the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, Mormon scouts traveling north became aware of the Goodyear fort and reported to Brigham Young. The fort was a threat to Young, who wanted a Mormon empire without "Gentile" or Non-Mormon strongholds within close proximity. He immediately was interested in buying the fort.

Captain James Brown arrived in the Salt Lake Valley with the Pueblo detachment of the Mormon Battalion a short time after Brigham Young in 1847. On August 9th, 1847, he and a few others were sent to California to collect some backpay. On their way, they visited the Goodyear fort and inquired about the proprietor's interest in selling. The offer was favorably received. In November Captain Brown returned from California with $3,000 in Spanish and Mexican gold coins from the battalion payroll. Brown struck an agreement with Goodyear on November 25 where $1,950 in gold coin was exchanged for "a deed to the land, all his improvements, seventy-five goats, twelve sheep, and six horses."

Brown moved his family to the little fort on March 6, 1848. Many immigrants that had been associated with the "Missis-sippi Saints" and wintered with Brown at Pueblo moved to the settlement with him. They settled in a scattered fashion along the Weber River, near the mouth of Weber Canyon, and along the Ogden River.

In February, 1849 a congregation of Mormons in the region was organized as a Latter-day Saint ward with James Brown as Bishop. Large numbers of emigrants were directed by Brigham Young to settle in the Ogden area, and by 1850 there were over 1,000 people living there. In January of 1850, Lorin Farr, a 27-year-old native of Vermont, was sent by church authorities to live at Ogden. He immediately became the most influential person in what was designated later that year as Weber County. The settlement was named Ogden City and established as the county seat.

The immigration of 1850-51 was so significant that in 1851 it became necessary to survey the townsite. A city council was organized which consisted of a mayor, four aldermen, and nine councilors, all appointed by the governor and legislature of the State of Deseret, and later confirmed by the people in an election on April 7, 1851.

EB: President Young and Heber C. Kimball came to Ogden in 1851 and organized the stake with Lorin Farr as president and James Brown and William Palmer as councilors. I was chosen a member of the High Council and ordained [a High Priest] by Brigham Young, and Heber C. Kimball set me apart for that calling. I was also a member of the first council of Ogden City.

The organization of the church in a local area consisted of a congregation or "Ward" presided over by a Bishop and two councilors. A group of several wards formed a "Stake" and was presided over by a Stake Presidency consisting of a president and two councilors. Within a stake, twelve men from the various wards were called to act as a "High Council" and administer the affairs of integration and coordination of the various wards. Each of these positions were filled by members of the various congregations and they served without pay until such time as they moved away, became ill or could otherwise no longer serve.

With his call to the High Council, Edward immediately gained community status. The call may have been the result of his commitment as expressed by his willingness to sacrifice and serve faithfully in whatever capacity required. It may have been the result of his growing leadership ability as witnessed by those he had served with. It may also have been the result of his affiliation with James Brown, already an established leader in the community.

Edward wrote that he lived on Canfield Creek between William Lang and James Brown. Emily's mother was given a lot by her husband, James Brown, on Washington Avenue. Canfield Creek crosses Washington Avenue at 34th Street. This is about a mile from 28th Street and the edge of the grid initially laid out for the city. Therefore, we might conclude that Edward lived at about 34th street and Washington Avenue. His next door neighbor on one side was his mother-in-law, and on the other side William and Sarah Lang.

3nd Child: Abigail Lucinda Bunker.
Born: April 15th, 1851, Ogden, Utah
Mother: Emily Abbott [3nd child]

EB: William Lang died soon after I came there [to Ogden] and I married his widow, whose maiden name was Sarah Ann Browning, June, 1852. She had two girls by her first husband.

Polygamy had been practiced in the church for several years. To enter into this practice several things had to occur. First, the man had to be in good standing in the church and generally in a hierarchical position. The added responsibility of multiple wives was given to those who had demonstrated the ability to handle such a calling. Second, the first wife had to give her consent for the husband to marry another wife. The ideal situation was for the first wife to "give" the husband another wife.

Emily was a very proud person. She undoubtedly loved her husband, but she also probably realized that as her husband gained prominence in the church and community he would be asked to participate in polygamy. She had seen her mother marry Captain James Brown as a polygamist wife, which must have softened her view of the situation.

Now that Edward was on the High Council, there must have been some pressure to find another wife. Sarah Browning Lang had been a friend to both Edward and Emily since their trek across the plains. She already had two children and was now a widowed neighbor in need of the support a plural marriage arrangement could offer. Perhaps some of these facts made her an acceptable selection to both Emily and Edward.

Sarah Ann Browning Lang was born October 10th, 1830 in Sumner County, Tennessee. She was the second of eight children born to James Green Browning and Mary Ann Neal. Her father's older brother was Jonathan Browning, famous for his work as a gunsmith. The two brothers had joined the Mormon church in Illinois and lived in Nauvoo. When Sarah was 17 years of age she met and married William Thomas Lang. The Langs and Bunkers had traveled together as young couples across the plains and had settled on adjoining lots in Ogden. Sarah's two children by her first husband were:

Mary Ann Lang, born January 22nd, 1848, and
Eliza Jane Lang, born September 19th, 1851.

Sarah was a young attractive widow that several men took interest in and offered marriage, but Sarah's father said:

"Sarah, I'd rather you'd marry Edward Bunker. He is a good man--long time friend--he is going on a mission and on William Lang's death bed, Edward promised he would have his [William Lang's] temple work done for him."

Sarah and Edward were married in Salt Lake and President Brigham Young said, "Of course, you know all of Sarah's children will belong to William Thomas Lang." Edward Bunker replied, "I couldn't do any greater work than to raise up a good posterity for my friend William Thomas Lang." In later years, Jim Bunker would comment about the situation, "Yes, but there is a damn lot of Bunker in us."