Transcript

I was organized in a company of ten under R. Chaffin with Henry W. Miller Captain over a whole company of 50. Besides myself and wife, there were four children, one wagon, one yoke of cows. Daniel MacKintosh was secretary of our company. We started 3 July 1852. Orson Hyde was the captain over 100.

The emigration of LDS across the plains in 1852 was larger than in any preceding years, owing to the fact that the Saints who had made themselves temporary homes in Pottawattamie Co., Iowa, had been counseled by President Young to immigrate to the valleys of the mountains. As the mapority of the Saints complied with the counsel given, all the branches in Pottawattamie County (between 30 and 40 in number) were discontinued and the membership of the branches constituted an important part of the emigrants of that year. The emigration from Great Britain was also a large one that year, or season, and even a number of the Saints who had spent a year or more in St. Louis crossed the plains in 1852, making their way to the valley of the mountains. Some of the Saints, who for various reasons, could not get ready for the crossing in 1852, went the following year or later on, but few who refused to comply with the counsel of the authorities of the church made themselves permanent homes there, and some of themsubsequently became identified with the apostate organization, and sidetracked Mormonism altogether.

I drove my team of oxen up and down through mud and streams and on 6 September, my oldest daughter, Sarah, was run over while she was getting out of the wagon and died the next day on Sweetwater River, at the age of seven. We still pressed on, though it was a trial to leave her buried there.