From the diary of his father, Hosea Stout:

Fri 8 May 1846. I was sick & went into the wood being very lonesome…
I was sent for… my little son Hyrum was dying. I found the poor little afflicted child in the last agonies of death. He died in my arms... with the whooping cough & black canker [scurvy]… the 2nd child which I had lost both dying in my arms. I shall not attempt to say anything about my feelings … for my family is still afflicted.

My wife is yet unable to go about & little Hosea my only son now is wearing down & what will be the end thereof. I have fearful forboding of coming evil on my family. We are truly desolate & afflicted & entirely destitute of any thing even to eat much less to nourish the sick

Thurs 25 Jun 1846. Little Hosea was on the decline the laying on of hands seemed to do but little or no good... water came in torrents & the wind blew our tent down & the water ran through the waggon. Hosea was lying in water…our last hopes for him vanished.


Saturday June the 27th 1846. We were shut up in the waggon with nothing to behold or contemplate but this devoted child writhing under the power of the destroyer …we laid hands on him again so that if he could not be raised up, the powers of darkness might be rebuked with the Priesthood…
After laying hands on him…he became easy & went to sleep.

Sunday June the 28th 1846. He seemed perfectly easy & now had given up to the struggle of death & lay breathing out his life sweetly. … he had his natural, easy, pleasant & calm appearance & seemed to go to sleep.
Thus died my son and one too on whom I had placed my own name & was the dearest object of my heart. Gone too in the midst of affliction sorrow & disappointment in the wild solitary wilderness. Surrounded by every discouraging circumstance that is calculated to make man unhappy &
disconsolate. Without the necessarys of life, Without even daily bread & no prospects for the future. There in this wild land to lay him...Discouraged, desolate & such frequent disappointments as had lately been my lot & no
reason to expect any thing better in future could now only occupy my mind & the mind of my wife the bereaved mother We had now only 1 daughter & that was born on the road & what was its fate? [Louisa, Apr 1846-Aug 1847]

I have often heard people tell of loosing the darling object of their heart & heard of people mourning as for the loss of an only son. But never until now did I fully feel and realize the keen & heart rending force of their words…
This the darling object of my heart gone seemed to cap the climax of all my former misfortunes & seemed more than all else to leave me uterly hopeless.

But I shall ceace to indulge in my feelings any longer…

Suffice it to say that every attention and kindness was now proffered to me that I needed on the occasion. There was a good coffin made for him. After which we all moved on and buried him on a hill in the prairie about one mile from the Nodaway where there was the grave of an infant of Br John Smith and then pursued our journey leaving the two lovely innocents to slumber in peace in this solitary wild untill we should awake them in the morn of the resurrection.