Transcript

At St. Joseph we came onboard a large River Steamboat, which took us to Florence where we arrived June 19 ^th —and remained till July 13 ^th when we set out for the Journey across the plains. During our stay in Florence we had it quite comfortable and convenient, living in a house, which we in connection with a few more families had resided; the most of the Saints while there lived in tents, which they also used while crossing the Plains—

We had some considerable trouble in getting started from Florence with those kind of Horses. "I mean Oxen" which some there provided for us, for those that used to drive cattle, it is not much of a trick, but for such as we were, intirely unaccustomed to such Animals, it was quite an undertaking, especially such Oxen as most of those which we got, that had not been used to work much, or were what they call In this country unbroken—Still we had very good success and no accident of any consequence occured to anybody—still on the whole, traveling with Oxen is not the most pleasant or expedicious way of getting along, it goes slow but sure, and finally after a somewhat tiresome and tedious trip of about 10 weeks we arrived in Salt Lake City[,] Utah Septbr[.] 23^rd 1862