Transcript

I also remember when we got to Council Bluff, and the many wagons there were there, and of travelling up the Platte River. One day I saw, away off from the road, what looked like a black cloud which soon showed itself to be a herd of hundreds of buffalo coming toward us.

One of my duties was to gather buffalo chips for the camp fire. One night I saw the train turn off the road, and thinking they were going to camp, I took my sack from the rear end of the wagon and filled it with buffalo chips. Then I saw that the train was yet going on, and had gone quite a distance while I was filling my sack. It was after sundown, too, so I emptied my chips out, took my shoes off, and began to run as fast as I could. It was after dark before I caught the train, badly frightened, and in my hurry I lost my shoes and sack. Later on after camp was made, we were told we would have to go perhaps a quarter of a mile over a low hill to find drinking water. So John Davenport and I took our buckets and went for water. We had just filled our buckets when it began to pour down. Two women had just filled their buckets too, and as John and I started back, they insisted we were going back the wrong way. They led us off another way, notwithstanding we both objected going in that direction. The lightening and thunder increased terrifically and the good women lifted up their dresses and covered us completely with their full skirts. They began to shout as hard as they could, and we boys were crying as hard as we could. After some time the rain quit, and we kept on walking and shouting for several hours, until we saw a light in the distance. This proved to be the guard camp fire of another company, several miles ahead of our camp. The guards informed us that it was twelve o'clock. They started back with us, but we had not gone far before gun shots were heard, and as we got nearer we found it was men from our camp. Naturally we were glad to be rescued, and when we arrived at camp they were all in a state of excitement.

I recall how we camped at the foot of the Rocky Mountains in a grove of cottonwoods, and how the next morning we found a slight fall of snow--the first we had seen on the journey. When we were about to leave this camp, two peddlers came from the west (I suppose from Salt Lake) and brought an assortment of vegetables which were certainly appreciated. From there on were some steep, rough, narrow dugways.

We got in Salt Lake City just as the October Conference was in session.

[Also found in Clinton P. Ashworth, ed. Autobiography of William B. Ashworth, 1845-1934 ([Orem: Clinton P. Ashworth, 2001]), 2-3]