Transcript

Transcript for John Edge Booth, autobiography, in John Edge Booth, compiled by Elsie A. Florence.

“My parents [Richard Thornton and Elsie Edge Booth] and four children [John Edge, James Davis, Martha Hannah and Sara Jane] sailed from Liverpool in the ship George Washington about the 26th day of March and made the trip to Boston in 22 days. I was not sea sick. On landing we at once took a train through Albany, New York; Buffalo, Cleveland, Chicago, Rock Island, and to Iowa City, Iowa. We camped out without shelter for about ten days or two weeks when we got wagons and cattle and started crossing the plains, next stopping at Florence, Nebraska. We then renewed our outfit and went on to Salt Lake. This letter is too brief to explain the details of that trip, and I expect to write more in my journal about it. We arrived in Salt Lake City about noon on Saturday the 12th day of September, 1857, having been nearly six months without ever having slept in a bed or house. On that day I ate a piece of watermelon and I liked it. I have not changed in that regard.

[Also published in Elsie A. Florence, comp., John Edge Booth: Personal Writings, Journals, Family Letters, Photographs and Family Group Sheets [1982], 2.]