Transcript

In the spring of 1848 I was one with several others who went to assist those who were moving to the Valley of Great Salt Lake. I came as far as Pacific Springs eight hundred and two and a half miles from Winter Quarters. Started on the return trip August 27^th reaching Winter Quarters October 15^th. . . .

I will next refer to some incidents in my travels west in the summer of 1848, with those that were going to the Valley that season. I have seen the buffalo for miles and miles as far as the eye could reach and half a day at a time and had some thrilling adventures in hunting them. When we were returning to Winter Quarters in the fall from our trip west we camped one night on the Sweet Water below the three crossings and the next morning, our oxen were nearly all gone. I only had one left out of four head, but we managed to move our wagons and gathered up our cattle through the day as we traveled along. I got all of mine but there were six head that we did not get until we got to the Warm Springs fourteen miles west of Ft. Laramie where we found them with some of the mountaineers who were working there. They did not want to give them up at first but finally did so. They had traveled over two hundred miles. They left the road and struck across the country and got to whare we found them a week ahead of us. The way we traveled and done at night. Where it was good roads on the Platte we traveled in two lines and when we camped for the night the lead wagons would form for the corall [corral] and the next wagons would come up on each line with the front wheels touching or locking in the hind wheel of the wagon in front with the tongue inside and so on until the corall was formed, leaving the gap at each end. We had ropes and stakes for picket pins for each and every one of our cattle and at dark we would fetch them in[,] each man staking his cattle outside and opposite his own wagon or wagons. Then we placed guards around the whole and called the time of night every half hour and changed the guards about one oclock in the night.