Transcript

Transcript for Castleton, William Joseph, Autobiographical sketch, 1

On May 4th, 1863, the family left England and emigrated to Utah. We crossed the ocean of [sic] the sailing vessel, Amazon, being six weeks and three days on the water. We arrived in or near New York City during the Civil War. We were taken from the vessel at night and put on a train and started for Utah. One day we had orders to keep all car windows closed as we were going to pass a lot of soldiers that were sidetracked in cars. I remember seeing lots of these soldiers and they wore grey uniforms and I supposed they were Southern prisoners of war.

We crossed the plains by ox teams in Captain Ri[c]k's company. At that time I was only a lad of seven years, but I remember such places as Chimney Rock, Fort Bridger (at that time it was a Government Fort and there were a lot of soldiers there), also Echo Canyon.

On arrriving in Salt Lake City the family lived in a tent on Second Avenue and D. Street.