A 13-month-old boy who died of cholera along the south Mormon Trail, or Oxbow Trail, on June 22, 1850, was remembered by relatives and townspeople in Ashland April 27.
Members of the Belnap Family Organization gathered along with participants in the Mormon Trail Wagon Train - 150 Years for the memorial service. Les Hill of Sugar City, Idaho, family organization president, gave the dedicatory prayer.A 5-foot, gray marble marker was placed in the vicinity of the baby's final resting place.
Bishop Brent Belnap of the Manhattan 3rd Ward for single members in the New York New York Stake, past family organization president, said a replica tool chest, similar to the one the baby was buried in, was constructed for the occasion. (See April 26, 1997, Church News.) Placed in it were antique copies of the scriptures, newspapers, tools, a baby blanket and baby shoes among other artifacts; thus it will become a family "time capsule" to be opened in 2097 as a reminder to later generations of the family legacy.
Following the LDS memorial service, held in St. Stephens Episcopal Church, the chest, which had been on display, was loaded into the train's lead wagon driven by Ray and Pat Hailey, Church members from New Virginia, Iowa. They had conveyed it in their wagon from Council Bluffs, Iowa. It was driven to the memorial site near Salt Creek, where it was placed.
Featured in the memorial service and in a later concert in connection with the event were world-renowned tenor Michael Keith Belnap and organist Parley L. Belnap, family organization members.