Transcript

Transcript for Ivy Hooper Blood Hill, compiler and editor, William Blood: His Posterity and Biographies of Their Progenitors (Logan: J.P. Smith and Sons, 1962), 14-16

The company was organized at Winter Quarters. Allen Taylor was chosen captain of one hundred wagons, Reddick Allred of the fifty we were in, and Charles Lambert was captain of the ten we were in. All things were prepared for the journey, but we remained in camp on July 4 and respected the day of the independence of our nation.

On July 5 our company started to cross the western wildernes. We soon came to the [Elk] Horn River where we had to ferry our wagons and swim our cattle, but we got over safely, and we traveled up the north side of the Platte River.

Father [William Blood] had two yoke of oxen on one wagon and one on the other. He drove the double team and my sister Ann drove the single team. I helped to drive the loose cattle and sometimes the team. Ann was twelve and I was ten years of age that summer.

As we were traveling up the Platte River, we met a large company of Sioux Indians who were said to be on the war path. They were freshly painted and well dressed. They were all dressed alike in new buckskins, leggings and coats, feathers in their hair, and they carried bows and arrows. They seemed to be about six feet in height. They looked grand and noble as they marched past in single file.

We came to a river called Loop [Loup] Fork. It flowed from the north and emptied into the Platte so we had to cross it. This was difficult as it had a shifting sandy bottom and it gave a lot of trouble, but we got over it safely.

On August 10, 1849, I was baptized in the Platte River by Elder William Hawks.

All along up the Platte River for two or three hundred miles we saw thousands of buffalo every day. They were so numerous they could not be counted. Large herds were scattered all over the prairie as far as the eye could see. This was daily for weeks. Some times they came close to our wagons. I saw more buffalo that summer than I have ever seen of tame cattle in my life. The meat of the buffalo furnished our company with all the meat we needed. At times our cattle would come near mixing with them. They seemed to give our oxen a wild spirit. One day our teams stampeded. It was caused by one team running away and as it passed another wagon, that team ran and so on until most of our fifty were running although the teamsters were doing all they could to stop them by beating them over the head.

We sometimes heard the wolves howl and occasionally we met Indians but thy were peaceably inclined.

We continued on the north side of the Platte River as our pioneers had done the two years before.

There was a road on the other side of the river and the famous Ash Hollow was also on the south side.

I remember "Chimney Rock" not far from Fort Laramie and other points of interest as we passed along, such as the "Sweet Water" where it cut through a mountain of solid rock, the salaratus lakes where we could gather saleratus like blocks of ice, then the Green River with a splendid ford and how nicely we crossed over it, then Fort Bridger about one hundred and thirteen miles from Salt Lake City. I was so pleased when I thought we were so near our journey's end. We came to Echo Canyon, a beautiful place with rocks perpendicular to the height of several hundred feet. There were holes and caves in the rocks and when one called or made a big noise you could hear the echo three or four times. I have been there since and have taken more notice than when I first saw it.

At the mouth of Echo Canyon we came to the Weber River which we followed about four miles, then crossed it and also crossed two mountain ranges and traveled down Emigration Canyon into Salt Lake Valley and camped. This was on the 13th of October, 1849.