Transcript

. . . but in the spring of 1868 I was caled by Bp. J.P.R. Johnson to go efter emigrants as was the custom in them day the Church would send teams to the emigrants at the end of the road which was at Fort Benton by north plat[te]. I acordingly got rady for the trip,

on the 13^th of June 1868 I gat my Indowments [endowments] in Salt Lake City in the Indowments house, it was cu[s]tomary for the missionaries to have that don before leaving whether it was a loborin[g] or priching [preaching] mission and a few days efter we left for the east going up through Provo Canyon[,] Weeber [Weber,] Coalvil[l]e an[d] ekko, [Echo] where we met the rest of the Company[,] some from Spring Ville [Springville,] Pleasant Grove[,] American Fork[,] Lehi, Alpine and Jordan.

The streams were very high that year and we had some truble gitting over Weeber [Weber] river[.] nothing of any serius neature [nature] happened til we came to Green river where we arived on June 27 or 28^th.

On the 25 Captain Wm. S. Seeleys Company had misfortune of loosing six of their teamsters in drowning as the cable of the ferry boat broke and the ferry boate capsised. the river was overflowing the banks in all directions. This was at what was caled the Robinson ferry. Our Company got their stock swam acrose and the cable was fixed again and our wagons taken acros in one day with out any axsident [accident] which was very good[,] the Captain complementing us for our work and killing a beef for a treat. I had a very narrow ascape [escape] from drowning as we were swimming our oxen over as it was nesesary for some of us to run the risk in order to git the oxen across.

We arrived at Fort Benton on the banks of North Plat[te] which was then the turmenes [terminus] or the end of the railroad where we waited about six weeks before the emigrants arived and gat [got] r[e]ady for our return trip. The feed here was very good but the Indians were on the war path so we had to ceep [keep] very close watch of our stock.

On August 25^th the emigrants arived under the leadership of Hans Jensen Hals[.] efter that we stopped a few days for the emigrants rest and prepare for the jurny,

we then started for the west or home on September 1^st. Our emigrants were all Scandinaviens and we were the last train that brought emigrants as the following year the railroad was comp[le]ted to Ogden so there were no more need of Church teams goin efter the Saints. There were 62 wagons in our Company which was under the leadership of John Holman from Pleasent [Pleasant] Grove[.] he was a very good man and able Captain

It was on this trip I first met my wife Ingeri Sward

we arrived in Salt Lake City Sept. 25^th there were 650 emigrants in the train[.] a number died on the plains and were burried by the way side.