Transcript

We took the council and joining a number of other saints at Philadelphia we traveled to Florence, Nebraska, where we joined Capt. Daniel Robinson's handcart company and started on our journey to Utah June 7, 1860, with our two children, aged respectively two and a half years and six months. On the journey there was considerable suffering, owing to the scarcity of provisions, and as I had some jewelry which I thought could be spared I went to a trading post on our route of travel and asked the proprietor of the store if he would trade me some flour for my jewelry; the price of flour at that time and place was $10 per hundred. I soon perceived that the store keeper was not inclined to make the trade, but I noticed a very tall man, perhaps a trapper or a miner, dressed in a beaded buckskin suit, standing in the store who turned to me and asked: "What do want for that thing" (meaning my jewelry). I answered him as if by inspiration, saying: "700 pounds of flour, Sir." He took my piece of jewelry and sent 700 pounds of flour to our camp. I gave it to the commissary of the hand cart company who dealt it out judiciously to the hungry travelers, the last measure, being half a pint to a person, being distributed on the day we crossed Green River. While we were being ferried across that stream a shout of joy went up from our company as the word was passed that a relief train sent by the Church authorities had just arrived with provisions for us. With this relief our main troubles were over, and we arrived safely in Salt Lake City Aug. 27, 1860. One birth and one death (that a baby) happened on our overland journey. The arrival of our company in Salt Lake City ended forever that most pathetic mode of traveling by the Latter-day Saints, namely, the crossing of the plains with hand carts.