Transcript

We landed all safe in Bluff City, which was filled with emigrants bound for the California gold mines and Saints bound for Salt Lake City. It was the most busy emigrating season ever known, and Council Bluffs was a busy place. All kinds of trade were going on, and outfitters making purchases of everything they thought would be needed for an overland journey of nearly two thousand miles.

To make the most of the situation with a view of securing our own outfit, we rigged up two of our children with a supply of needles and a few other articles, with instructions to call at every house, and sell needles at the rate of three papers for twenty-five cents. While they were going through one street, I visited another, and at the close of each day, we deposited the amount of our sales with my wife. Nearly every family in Bluff City bought needles of us, which formed the chief basis of our capital for the purchase of our oxen, wagon, etc. The sale of goggles also was a great help to us. We sold a large quantity; almost every emigrant purchased a pair. We had every reason to believe that the means deposited with my wife daily, was added to or multiplied while in her possession, for on several occasions we found a larger sum than was previously deposited, which verified the truth of the adage: "The Lord helps those who help themselves."

Being thus provided for, we started on our journey on the 8th of June. I enrolled in the 5th company, under the leadership of Captain Tidwell, and crossed the Missouri River with our faces Zionward.

Our outfit consisted of two yoke of oxen, two yoke of cows, a wagon, and an ample supply of provisions for our journey.

My experience in the management of cattle made it necessary for me to arrange with Brother Henry Green to drive our team across the plains. It was a very sickly season. Many died with cholera. Two of our children died of that disease and had to be buried in a very crude and insecure manner, producing the most painful and trying feelings in our experience. Thus five of our children had been left to mark our pathway from the country that gave us birth to the home of the Saints: one on the ocean, one in Memphis, one in St. Louis and two on the plains.

With our family thus diminished, we reached Salt Lake City on the 15th of September, 1852, being the day when many of our Elders, who had been called at a special conference, left upon missions to nearly all parts of the world, to publicly proclaim the doctrine of plural marriage.