Transcript
Transcript for Miller, John H., "Forty Years in Zion," Salt Lake Tribune, 5 Apr. 1903, 35
"We arrived in Castle Garden; were taken up the Hudson and out to Buffalo on a vessel. At Buffalo we took train for St. Joe, Mo., and there we took steamer for a small place called Wyoming near Nebraska City. There our party was divided into two companies, one under Capt. [William] Hyde and the other under Capt. [Warren S.] Snow.
"The balance of the trip from Wyoming to Salt Lake was made with ox teams and three whole months were consumed in crossing the plains. There was great suffering during this part of the trip. There was lack of food. Flour went to $1 a pound. Occasionally we would stop at a ranch and get fresh beef. Invariably this made us sick as we would go for weeks without fresh meat and would eat too heartily of it when we did get it.
"The trip across the plains was such a hard one, there was so much exposure, and the trip ran so late into the season that over 100 persons died between the time we left England till our arrival in Salt Lake. Those who died were mostly children or old people who were not strong enough to stand the rigors of roughing it on the plains. As for me, I enjoyed the outdoor life and thrived on it.
"We encountered heavy snow in the Black hills and were forced to camp in the snow on more occasions than one. At these times the future seemed dark. Many in the company had left good homes and being deprived of all comforts, faded away and died.
"I married my wife on the plains two weeks out from Salt Lake. We became engaged on the way over, but did not intend to marry till after our arrival in Salt Lake. My wife was Serena Barnett, a young girl at that time. On the trip her mother, sister, niece and sister-in-law all died. She was left with no one to care for her or the little property falling to her and in order to secure authority to care for her we were married.
"I remember one little incident of the trip as though it happened yesterday. Crossing the Platte river at Julesburg, we had to put twenty yoke of oxen to each wagon to pull it across. We had to ride on the backs of the oxen. I was riding one of them when one of my toes got caught in one of the links of the ox chain. I had my choice of having my toe broken or tumbling off into the river. I tumbled and it was the deepest part of the ford too.
"Our train was loaded entirely too heavily with merchandise. This was why we were so long in making the trip and this was why we were so short of food. When we arrived in Salt Lake November 5, 1864, sugar was $1 a pound; flour was $24 a hundred weight; tea was $5 a pound; molasses was $3 a gallon; potatoes were $3 a bushel; and other things were proportionately high. There was but one place in the city at that time where beer was sold, and it was home brewed beer at that.