Governor Alfred Cumming and his wife Elizabeth Wells Cumming

Alfred Cumming, 2nd Governor of the Territory of Utah

Elizabeth Wells Cumming, wife of Governor Cumming, great-granddaughter of Samuel Adams.  Her letters describing her adventures on the journey with the Utah Expedition from the Missouri River to the Salt Lake Valley in 1857-1858 were published in a booklet which can be found here:  The Genteel Gentile, Letters of Elizabeth Cumming, 1857 - 1858

Elizabeth wrote about wintering in Camp Scott, “We live in five tents – One a dining room.  Second a store room of trunks boxes & so forth, & such little provisions as we have.  Third a kitchen, in which we are building a chimney.  Fourth-a sleeping tent for the young girl.  Fifth-a double wall tent divided into parlour & bed chamber – eight feet by 10 each & is the admeasurement thereof, I believe.  In my parlour I have a carpet made of a grey blanket – in the center is a little rug – A settee, covered with chintz, fills one side & a long but narrow table with two littles shelves of books upon it, fills the opposite side – one chair stands in the center.  I have also a little stand for a work box & at the side of the entrance is a tiny stove.”

Captain Alfred Cumming, the Governor's nephew, served in Fort Floyd.  A few years later he served the Confederate States of America during the civil war and retired as a Brigadier General.