The family lived in Brighton, Iowa until 1862. William drove a food/supply wagon “out west” and was killed by the Indians in 1862 (from Obit. for Catherine). William was in a five member party with Dan Gonder, Catherine’s brother and two other men when they were attacked by Indians. Catherine’s brother said that William was full of arrows, trying to save their food from the Indians. The rest of the party came back home. William was never heard from. (information from Will Clayton, which was given to Mabel Moats Will by her mother May A Moats, wife of Clayton M. Moats)
Rob Moats found references to his death and the wagon train attack in several publications from the time about the various indian attacks at Massacre Rocks, near American Falls, Idaho such as:
H. F. Swasley who gave an account to the Quincy Union (Illinois), October 28; and the Diary of Henry M. Judson.
In the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, October 1st 1862 edition, Mark Twain wrote the following article:
“THE INDIAN TROUBLES ON THE OVERLAND ROUTE. - Twelve or fifteen emigrant wagons arrived here on Monday evening, and all but five moved on towards California yesterday. One of the five wagons which will remain in the city is in charge of a man from Story county, Iowa, who started across the plains on the 5th of May last, in company with a large train composed principally of emigrants from his own section. From him we learn the following particulars: When in the vicinity of Raft river, this side of Fort Hall, the train was attacked in broad daylight by a large body of Snake Indians. The emigrants, taken entirely by surprise - for they had apprehended no trouble - made but a feeble resistance, and retreated, with a loss of six men and one woman of their party. The Indians also captured the teams belonging to thirteen wagons, together with a large number of loose cattle and horses. The names of those killed in the affray are as follows: Charles Bulwinkle, from New York; William Moats, Geo. Adams and Elizabeth Adams, and three others whose names our informant had forgotten. The survivors were overtaken on the afternoon by a train numbering 111 wagons, which brought them through to Humboldt. They occasionally discovered the dead bodies of emigrants by the roadside; at one time twelve corpses were found, at another four, and at another two - all minus their scalps. They also saw the wrecks of many wagons destroyed by the Indians.”
Background on Massacre Rocks -
Massacre Rocks is a conspicuous lava formation about two miles west of a ravine in which an Oregon Trail emigrant train was ambushed in 1862. One of a series of skirmishes involving several wagon trains scattered over many miles of road, August 8 to 10, this incident occurred during North Idaho's gold rush to Florence and Elk City. Indians in the Snake country had been restless for several years, and the intrusion of miners into their lands made the situation worse. After the Ward Massacre in Boise Valley in 1854, passage over the Oregon Trail had become increasingly dangerous in Shoshoni and Bannock lands. By 1862, small parties traveling by themselves often got into trouble. Those who did not follow Goodale's cutoff encountered Indian resistance across much of southeastern Idaho; some were besieged east of Fort Hall on August 8, but most were caught in country occupied by Pocatello's band farther west. Pocatello had become a prominent Shoshoni leader before 1860, and by 1862 he concluded that emigrant wagons would have to be excluded from his lands--an area extending west of American Falls past Raft River and City of Rocks to upper Goose Creek and upper Humboldt deserts in Nevada. Pocatello's resistance diverted a substantial portion of Idaho gold rush traffic to Goodale's Cutoff that summer, but California wagons could not avoid Pocatello's barrier at City of Rocks. Some Oregon and Washington emigrants also were trapped shortly before they reached Massacre Rocks.