observe the Sabbath. 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. Clayton collaborated with Orson Pratt, a mathematician, and Appleton Harmon, a carpenter, to create a wagon-wheel odometer, or roadometer. It 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. Clayton made his notes and measurements available to other emigrants in his The Latter-Day Saints' Emigrants' Guide. 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. 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