This view shows the grave of Elizabeth Paul along the Lander Cutoff (part of the Oregon Trail) in the Wyoming Range west of Big Piney, Wyoming.  From the sign:

Elizabeth Paul

In April 1862 the Thomas Paul family left Fremont, Iowa, for Washington Territory.  Mrs. Elizabeth Mortimore Paul, who was pregnant, had a difficult time on the journey west, and here on July 27, 1862, age 32, she died giving birth to a daughter.  The infant, named Elizabeth for her mother, lived for only a week.

The death and burial are well recorded by several contemporary diarists.

Hamilton Scott: "We remained in camp all day.  Thomas Paul's wife died about 9 o'clock this morning . . . She has been poorly for some time.  We buried her this evening under a large pine tree and put a post and paling fence around her grave."

Jane A. Gould: Monday, July 28, 1862.  "Came past a camp of thirty-six wagons who had been camped some time here in the mountains . . . there was a woman died in their train yesterday, she left six children and one of them only two days old, poor little thing it had better died with its mother, they made a good picket fence around the grave."

H.M. Judson: Tuesday, July 29, 1862.  "We pass this afternoon a beautiful grave made in an opening in the forest and directly beneath a fine fir tree- Twas made on the 27th inst (only 2 days ago) and was enclosed in a picket yard of hewn timber- a board set into a notch sawed into the tree informed us that the grave contained the remains of Mrs. Elizabeth Paul- aged 32 years- beneath some kind friend had pinned a paper on which were written 3 beautiful & appropriate verses & which I regret very much I had not time to copy."

These verses apparently were written by James S. McClung, a member of the Paul company.  In his diary entry for July 27, he notes the death and burial of Elizabeth Paul and then writes the following lines:

Friends and physytions could not save

This mortal lovely boddy from the grave

Nor can the grave onfine it here

When God commands it to appear

For tho it was her lot to die

Hear a mong the mountans high

Yet when gabriels trump shall sound

Among the blessed she will be found

And while she rests beneath this tree

May hold angels wach and see

That naught disturbs her peaceful clay

Until the dawning of the day

Julius Merrill: August 15, 1864.  "Passed a grave enclosed by a picket fence, painted white.  A lovlier spot I never saw.  There was an opening of perhaps, half an acre, with one large shady pine near the center.  Under this lone tree was the grave.  The beauty of the place and the care bestowed upon the remains of the woman caused us all to stop to look at it."

Thomas Paul, with his seven surviving children, continued to Washington Territory and settled in Walla Walla County where he died September 29, 1904, at the age of 75.  The original pine tree still stands sentinel here over his wife's grave.

Research, Funding, and Signing by the Oregon-Calfornia Trails Association

1990

In cooperation with the Bridger-Teton National Forest, Kemmerer Ranger District, and descendants of Thomas and Elizabeth Paul

This is part of your American heritage.  Honor it, protect it, preserve it for your children.