Transcript

It was not my intention to come to Utah. I had started to Montana with a friend but learning while in North Platt[e] the terminus, then, of the U.P. Rail Road that there was a Mormon mule outfit coming after freight for Salt Lake City and would want teamsters[.] I thought it would be economical to drive a team across the plains that far, as I had plenty of time. It still being early in the season for business in the mines.

When the outfit came I engaged with William Streeper, who was wagon boss of a mixed outfit to drive a 6 mule team for Jedson L. Stoddard of Farmington, Utah, loaded with freight for Kimball and Lurance in Salt Lake City. We were delayed 3 weeks on account of the Indians stoled our mules and we had to go back to North Platt and get cattle. We were three months on the road. My wages, $30 per month, was $90. I got very well acquainted with the men and boys in the train and learned many things that I had heard and read about the Mormons were not true and my fear of going through Utah had vanished. I arrived in Farmington on the 30 of Sept. 1865