Transcript

I found a telegraph message ordering me to wait there until J[ohn]. R. Murdock and Captain Dane arrived to help with my team, as they were short of cattle. From there my wife, Caroline Derricott Orr, drove one yoke of cattle and rode in the wagon. She cooked for J.R.’s men. When we came to the Platte River, we crossed our wagons on the ferry and I drove the oxen across. It was swift and the oxen started downstream. I jumped off with my hip boots on to get in ahead of the cattle. John Young called me to grab on to an oxen’s tail and it pulled me out of the river. I couldn’t swim. Another time, our train was stampeded by buffalo and when they came to a precipice, they stopped dead still, saving us from a bad disaster.

We arrived in Salt Lake City in November, 1862, but they had to send teams out to help us into the valley.