Transcript

Transcript for Fletcher, Charles Eugene, Autobiography, 1911, 1-2

…and then with {two} cows and two oxen and Small light wagon we made a start to cross the so called planes of thousand miles. I can not remember very much of the particular of that journey, but I can remember how our team looked. We traveled on for several hundred mile with the rest of the company when one of oxen got lame and Sick and died. I remember our folks were very much worri{e}d of how we could get along to the Val{l}ey. Father found a man in the company that had a Spair harness that he could get, So the one ox was harness{ed} up{,} the cows were put on the wheel as we call it, on the tongue and the ox withe harness on was put on the lead or on the end of the wagon tongue. So we made out to get along a while longer. Our wagon had a large box with projections on eather {side} of some ten inches which mad{e} it quite wide with a door in the side with light pair of Steps so Mother {could} get up and down{.} there was two beds in the wagon one at eather end. we had a Small table that they could take apart and was hung on the back of the wagon and one chair{.} there were five of us children with Father Mother {so we} made a wagon full. Our few things put under the beds, and So we traveled on day after day untill we got up into Mountains then trouble b{e}gan a gain{.} the oxen back became Sore with chafing of the harness So it hard to make him pull his Share and the cow had {been} giving a little milk{.} they became very weak So it was hard to get along but our Uncle Jefferson Wright who had gone to the SL Val{l}ey three years before came to our releffe {relief} {with a} yoke of cattle and cart and came back {and} met us, and helped us through mountain into the val{l}ey. I remember when we got out of the mouth of Emagration {Emigration} canyon onto the bench east of Salt Lake City we had a general clean up before going into town{.} I reme{m}ber of rideing with my older Brothe{r} into Salt Lake on the cart my uncle had bought back with him and how thi {the} boys laugh at us and how mad we were at them.