<P> Some camp members were assigned specific tasks . William Clayton was appointed company scribe and was expected to record an accurate description of their journey and the distance they traveled each day . After three weeks, Clayton grew tired of personally counting the revolutions of a wagon wheel and computing the day's distance by multiplying the count by the wheel's circumference . After consulting with Orson Pratt, an accomplished mathematician, he designed a mechanism consisting of a set of wooden cog wheels attached to the hub of a wagon wheel, with the mechanism "counting" or recording by position the revolutions of the wheel . Clayton's design, which he called the roadometer, is the basis for most modern odometers . The apparatus was built to Clayton and Pratt's specifications by the company's carpenter Appleton Milo Harmon and was first used on the morning of May 12, 1847 . The roadometer showed that the company averaged between fourteen and twenty miles per day . Apostle Orson Pratt was named the company's scientific observer . He made regular readings on scientific instruments, took notes on geological formations and mineral resources, and described plants and animals . Journals kept by both Clayton and Pratt have become valuable resources for historians of the Mormon trek west . </P> <P> Women of the company also performed vital tasks along the way . While much time was spent on traditional activities such as cooking, sewing, and tending children, several women served as scribes and diary keepers . Harriet Page Young, wife of Lorenzo Young, was the first woman selected for the company . She was in ill health and Lorenzo Young feared to leave her and their young children behind . The other original women of the company, Ellen Sanders Kimball, wife of Heber C. Kimball, and Clarissa Decker Young, wife of Brigham Young, were asked to accompany the group to look after Harriet Young and keep her company . The three women were joined by a larger group of women church members from Mississippi who merged with the main party at Laramie, Wyoming . </P> <P> The first segment of the journey, from Winter Quarters to Fort Laramie took six weeks, with the company arriving at the fort on June 1 . The company halted for repairs and to reshoe the draft animals . While at Fort Laramie, the vanguard company was joined by members of the Mormon Battalion who had been excused from service due to illness and sent to winter in Pueblo, Colorado . Also traveling in the new group were Church members from Mississippi who had taken a more southern route toward the Great Basin . At this point, the now larger company took the established Oregon Trail toward the trading post at Ft . Bridger . At a difficult crossing of the Platte, just before encountering the Sweetwater River, the company made use of their portable boat and were able to cross with comparative ease . Seizing the opportunity to both help future travelers and increase the cash available to the migration, nine men under the direction of Thomas Grover were left behind to construct and operate a ferry at that location . Missourians and other travellers at the river paid the Saints $1.50 or more per wagon to help them cross . </P> <P> During the last week of June, Sam Brannan, leader of the Mormon emigrant ship Brooklyn, met the company near Green River, Wyoming . He reported to Young about his group's successful journey and their settlement in what is today San Francisco, California . He urged the vanguard company to continue on to California but was unable to shift the leader's focus away from the Great Basin . Young also met mountain man Jim Bridger on June 28 . They discussed possible routes into the Salt Lake Valley, and the feasibility of viable settlements in the mountain valleys of the Great Basin . Bridger was enthusiastic about settlement near Utah Lake, reporting fish, wild fruit, timber and good grazing . He told Young that local Indians raised good crops, including corn and pumpkins, but that there was ever - present danger of frost . The company pushed on through South Pass, rafted across the Green River and arrived at Fort Bridger on July 7 . About the same time, they were joined by thirteen more members of the sick detachment of the Mormon Battalion . </P>

When did the mormon pioneers get to utah