Transcript

There was a hotel across the street. They needed a girl to wait on the tables, and Mrs. Robinson recommended me. I got a dollar and a half a week. When we were leaving for Utah, the proprietor said if I would stay with them he would furnish me with everything I wanted and on my eighteenth birthday he would give me one thousand dollars, but Mother would not let me stay. We left for Utah in 1853. The water was very high and we went quite a distance on a raft.

We crossed the Missouri River on a ferry boat. Stayed there for several days waiting for a company to start. We started with two wagons, one yoke of oxen, two yoke of unbroken steers and four cows. There were thirteen of us and we had only one tent. John Brown was Captain of fifty. Father was Captain of ten independent wagons. The forty were called the perpetual fund.

The Indians were on the war path. Once we were stopped by them. It seemed to me there were a thousand of them. They could easily have killed us, but the men gave them provisions, robbing themselves, and we all suffered through dividing with them. There were seven deaths in our company.

The buffalo were so numerous we had to stop for them to pass. There was no going till they crossed the road. We children had to walk most of the way. One night the wagons passed us. My oldest sister stopped and sat down on a rock and said she was not going any farther. She tried to get me to go on, said she would rather be eaten by the wolves than go any farther. I cried and prayed and would not leave her. At last she said, "I cannot let the wolves kill you." Before we got to camp, we could hear the wolves coming close behind. When we got to camp we were so tired we could not eat or undress. Next day we had a short drive and stopped to wash. We stopped every week to wash and brighten our tin dishes.

One incident—a man in our company lost his wife, and after she died he wandered off and was lost. The company stayed days searching for him but never found him. The provisions were very low by this time. We were almost on the point of starvation, when my cousin, Daniel Mecham met us with a load of provisions—flour, meat, and vegetables. The next day we took turns riding the horses. The next day, Allen J. Stewart, an old friend of ours, met us with more provisions. Then we all rode the rest of the way to Salt Lake.

No one but those who crossed the plains can even imagine the trials we had to pass through. We arrived in Salt Lake on the 16th day of October 1853.