Transcript

About the 25th of June [1864] we landed, Soon made preparations for crossing the plains. Our wagon & team was soon got togeather, & it of course was as the balance of the camp & train wagons barable good & of oxen. We had two yoak of cattle they work togeather very well, on the road we started the whole of the train with captain Holladay in charge. George Dunford my Uncle was in the train coming out to Utah, with Several wagons loaded with goods. & his family[.] we all travel along very peaceabley till we got about three hundred miles on the road. then Some of Uncle Georges teamsters begin to disagree & disagree with him, so he would not put up with it got discourage & went back. My Father  [Isaac Dunford] try to get him to come on. but of no use. So he returned back to St Louis where he remain till the year of 68 when he came to utah where he & family has made it their home to the present time.

After this discusion on the plains the train & us traveled on very nicely till Some of the cattle commence dying off. we lost one of our best oxen that taken Sick long in the afternoon while traveling, the poor fellow realed as he walk, My Father unyoked him & turned him out almost the Same minute he laid down. & never got up again[.] his mate feeling so bad to See him there, went to him & hooked him to get him up, but he could not[.] he laid there and died. all that night the poor ox that had lost his mate could not & did not rest, he Seemed to feel bad for Several days.

Soon after to fill the place of the lost ox My Father bought a cow, as oxen were so dear, this cow we called plum[.] we hitched her up with one of the oxen & She worked very well[.] this way we continued our journey. many of the people in the train lost a great many of their cattle[.] So some of them were compell[ed] to Cache their goods in the ground & run their wagons off in the brush, Some leaveing their Stoves & heavy pieces of furniture that they may have by the road Side, in order to liten their load. having b[e]arable good luck all a cross the plains, compared to what some have had it, long the first of September we arrived in great Salt Lake valley.