Transcript

The night we arrived at Iowa there was one of the worst storms of rain, thunder and lightening that I ever experience. They had wagons and teams to haul our luggage to camp about three miles and we had to walk, it being so dark we could not see anything. Children lost their parents and parents lost their children and we had a great time there. A great number of tents put up on the camp ground and we got into one of them but everything we had was as wet as it could be, but we passed the night somehow and were all there when morning came and the sun shone bright and then their goods spread out to dry. We were delayed there three weeks waiting for out[our] handcarts and the people got very uneasy at the long delay, as they knew they had a long journey before them.

At last we started out about three oclock in the afternoon and a good many grumbled making such a late start, but Captain Martin told them to be patient and they would soon see the wisdom of it. We crossed the Iowa river and traveled about five miles and then camped for the night and then they could see the wisdom of making a short drive so the people could get used to camping. The next day the company started early but got pretty tired before it was night and then there was singing etc. until about 9 P.M., when the sound of the bugle called the camp to prayers and so we traveled across the Iowa Prairies, crossing rivers and small streams until we reached the Missouri river at a place they called Counsil Bluffs. We then traveled up the river about 3 miles to Florence, where there was a ferry boat and it took about 2 or 3 days to ferry us across the river. We waited several days for the Daniel Tylers Company to arrive and then we were all placed in one company and the company being so large we travled very slowly across the Nebraska plains. Several aged persons died and were buried by the road side and after the sad rites were over we wended on our way burning buffaloe chips for fuel to cook our fugal meals. As far as the eye could stretch its gaze there was not a hill in sight nor a tree. We crossed several streams of water and some pretty large rivers. Us children and the old folks would start early in the morning and get as far along as we could until the others overtook us with the hand carts. The ox carts and teams that hauled tents and provisions usually traveled behind the hand carts. We had a great many handcarts break down and lose some of our cattle which made some delays. It was quite an undertaking to get nearly 1,000 persons who had never been away from home, never saw a campfire in their lives to a trip of that kind and it required a great deal of patience to get them started and to get them camped for the night. We saw a great many buffalos as we traveled up the Platte river. I will never forget one day when we met 3,000 Sioux warriers [warriors] all dressed in their war paint going east to fight the Pawnees. I remember how they laughed and jabbered to each other and how frightened we were but they gave us the road and made signs to us that they were our friends and they would not be unkind and not kill us and so we got over that scare allright. We were forbidden to kill buffalo by our leaders for it made the Indians mad to have the buffalo shot and so we used to hire the Indians to kill them for us. The first one I saw killed was a young buffalo cow. An Indian warrior went after her on horseback and when she tried to turn he would shoot an arrow into the side of her heart and keep her straight for our camp and when he got her to the road he shot an arrow and struck her just back of her left shoulder and it struckso and she rolled over dead being shot through the heart and one of our men gave him about 5cents worth of tobacco for it and that is about what it cost to get a buffalo to eat and that was better than to make the Indians mad at us. We saw great herds of buffalos estimated to 50,000 in a herd and so we plodded along day after day until we crossed the Wyoming line and our provisions were cut down to three fourths of a pound of flour a day and as the Indians were very bad that year we had to very careful. The men had to stand guard every night and the weather got very cold and then commenced our suffering and we soon had our flour cut to one half lb. per day. A great many of the older people died and many young people were not able to stand the hardships and finnaly we were down to one fourth pound of flour per day. We soon had our teams give out and when they died we were glad to eat them and soon the snow began to fall and then our sufferings were intense. My father died on somewhere along the Sweet Water. The snow got so deep and so heavy that it was very difficult to travel. We finally decided we could not get any farther and so we concluded we just as well die there as anywhere else so we gave up trust in God to deliver us. That night three teams from the valley arrived and reported that more would be there soon and no one that has never been in such a fix could imagine how we felt or how men and women knelt down and thanked the almighty God for our delivery from certain death. It put new life into the people.

I well remember how glad we all were and how we all rejoiced in the prospect of arriving in the valley the next day. Several teams arrived and finally we were all loaded into the wagons. The wagon we were in belonged to Ebeneazar Richardson of Ogden City. We traveled slowly along, early and late until we arrived at the gigantic mountains. The snow was very deep and there were a great many men there from Salt Lake with shovels digging the snow out of the road so the teams could pull the wagons up the long hill and they had built fires on the side of the road so people could warm themselves as all who were able to walk had to do so. The teams could get through finally. We got to the top then it was down hill and we finally arrived in Salt Lake City the 30th day of November, 1856.