Transcript

Transcript for Edward Bunker autobiography, 1894, 19-20

In the spring of 1850, I started for Salt Lake Valley in Capt. Johnson’s hundred and Mat[t]hew Caldwell’s fifty and I was captain of a ten. We followed up the route of the Calif. emigration on the south side of the Platt[e] river. Nothing of importance happened until we came into the cholera district where the emigrants had died in great numbers and were buried by the roadside. We found one man unburied lying in the brush. He was given a burial by the company. Our camp was attacked and eighteen out of our hundred died from the effects of the cholera. My wife and daughter, Emily who had been born to us the 1st of Mar, [1849] on Mesquite Creek Iowa - was taken very sick but through the power of faith and good nursing they recovered.

At the end of three months we reached Salt Lake Valley, our haven of rest, Sept 1st 1850.