Along with Capt John Grigsby, was one of the leaders of an immigrant wagon train from Illinois in 1845. He had found out during the winter of 1845-46 that the entire Mormon colony was leaving Nauvoo, Illinois to go to the California area (which at that time included what is now Arizona, Nevada, Utah and California). He had been a delegate to the 1844 Mormon Convention at Nauvoo, Illinois. His eldest son James Monroe Ide died at St George, Utah in 1878.

According to Robert Parmalee in "Pioneer Sonoma", "...most of the members of the Grigsby-Ide immigration party of 1845 were Mormons..."