Transcript

CROSSING THE PLAINS

Some of the brethren had some words with the captain of fifty. As we got on the road the captain would almost every day resign his office in the morning, noon, and night because things did not go on right to his notion. The brethren got dissatisfied with his ways and concluded to break up the company unless he would change his means of governing, thus when we arrived at Wood River, which is about two-hundred miles from Winter Quarters, I asked leave to go alone with my ten as I did not like contention and dissention.

The captain gave me orders to join to the company, and I gave them (orders) just as he had given them to me, and the brethren did not like them, but as soon as he found they did not approve of them, he denied giving them to me as I had given them. Well, he lied and I knew it so that was one reason I wished to go ahead and not travel with him.

He told me when I asked him if I might leave that I could go, so I went and told my ten if they had a mind to come along they could so they could still keep the organization. We had been three weeks in traveling to Wood River from the Missouri River. They did not come with me, so I left them and started on alone with my wagon and family and my wife's brother [George Frederick Hewitt].

NB I learned after getting in the Valley that the day after I had left the company, the company by the captain's request moved him from his berth and made another captain, but Mr. Great House was not willing to be governed. Finally the company all broke up and moved in small parties. Also (Out House [Joseph Outhouse]) after he arrived in the Valley he bids out of the Church and went to California and all his family.

I traveled some time alone and some time with two other wagons that were going to the Valley. One of the wagons was owned by Captain Hawley, a member of the church, the other by a Californian. We traveled in peace. I got here in the Valley on the Twentieth of August 1852. Met Brother John Lowe between the Little and Big Mountains.