Transcript

It was the policy of the Church, from the time the pioneers arrived in 1847, until the railroad was built in 1868, to send, each year, a train of freighters from Utah to the Missouri river to bring Church immigrants. In the spring of 1862 I went for immigrants and drove one of the Church teams. Homer Duncan was our captain. My outfit consisted of four yoke of oxen and a covered wagon. I was loaded with flour which was left at the "Supply Forts." This flour was used by the immigrants on our return trip. It took four or five months to make the trip; we encountered considerable trouble in fording streams, swimming our cattle and building pontoon bridges. At Ham's Fork the bridge was gone. We unloaded our flour, took it across in a boat and forded the stream.

When we arrived at Florence, on the bank of the Missouri river, the immigrants were there. Our train of fifty wagons was loaded with 500 immigrants, flour, bacon, and provisions for our company. My wagon was loaded with bacon, which was used when we reached Laramie, Wyoming. Here I was loaded with buffalo robes, which after a few days, were distributed among our company for their use. Then Abraham Taylor and family and their belongings were loaded into my wagon and I brought them to Springville, Utah, arriving in October, 1862.