Transcript

Sir James told me that I had better stay in Manchester and not take chances in going to a new country; but my parents having joined the religion of the Latter-day Saints (Mormons,) we left Liverpool on April 24, 1864, for Salt Lake City, arriving here on October 5, having been five and one-half months on the way, and having been on the sea five weeks on a sailing vessel that was never heard of again, on its return journey. This vessel was called the Monarch of the Sea, but was evidently mis-named.

At the Missouri river we had to wait for some weeks for our wagon to come from the factory, and we then started on our eleven hundred miles journey across the plains with our four yoke of oxen, hitched to a schettler wagon, and were eleven weeks crossing from the Missouri river to Salt Lake City. The company consisted of about sixty wagons, with about five persons to each wagon, travelling in the manner for protection. The men walked most of the way and took their turns standing guard over the cattle and camp at night, and many a time when my turn came I was so tired that I could have gone to sleep on guard if I had not been so scared, thinking that every sage bush was a moving Indian.

Our company caught up with other immigrants who had been attacked, and in one case where a man and his wife were in the rear of a train the man had an arrow shot in his hip. This disabled him and his wife was carried off by the Indians and never heard of again. Eleven teamsters of another freight train were killed, the Indians taking what they wanted and burning up the wagons and balance of the freight and running off with the harvest.

One morning when all of us were ready to start the cattle stampeded, and the result was that a number of wagon tongues and spokes were broken, a few were hurt, but no one was killed, and the journey was resumed the next day.