Transcript

Dear brother, I will now give you a short account or history of our family. After we got over the sea we went 15 hundred miles up the Mississippi River and landed at a place called Nauvoo, with the exception of Mother who died on the sea as you are aware. We stayed in Nauvoo 2 years only, and then father moved 8 miles into the woods where there was no house within a quarter or half a mile of us. Where we could neither hear nor see anything but the birds and hear the frog a croaking and the trees all around us. And that was where John and Herbert got discouraged and said they was going back to England.

And now, I come to think about, I certainly do not blame them. Accordingly, they started down the river to Saint Louis. But great trouble seemed to await them, for they had barely arrived at Saint Louis until they both took sick with the fever and ague. And having no friends, and in a strange land, they was obliged to come back sick and destitute. They both kept sick, and along in the summer John was took with the fever, and it set in his leg and became what is called a fever sore and he died. My brother Herbert also remained sick. At last some kind-hearted people came and took him home with them, and thought they could cure him. But after he was gone 5 or 6 weeks he died with a sore throat, the fever settling in his throat.

The while we was a living in the woods in a most miserable hut not fit to be called a house. It was made of willows and mud. We was all taken down sick but father, but I seemed to escape a little better [than] the rest. The next was my sister Mary who was very sick, almost dead, when some kind friends came and took her to their homes in a nice carriage, and fed her with a spoon and watched over her day and night.

They was very kind, and after a long time, almost 2 years, she got some better and went to Salt Lake with them same folks. The man's name was Daniel Russell. My brother Peter went to Warsaw [Illinois] and he got well, and went to Salt Lake with our family. Me and my father remained in the woods until November, after living there in the woods all the summer and fall. And then we went to live at a man's house with the family by the name of Kington, all the winter.

Then we went to live with Mrs. Bennett and William Kay all the next summer and fall. And then father got acquainted with a woman by the name Cole and got married, and lived all that winter at a place called the Big Mound. And then we moved to what was called Winter Quarters, we afterwards called Florence.

But great trouble seemed to be my lot, for the while we was traveling. We had got about 25 miles [when] father took sick with the fever, also that terrible plague. After [he had] been sick 2 or 3 weeks he got a little better. The company waited this time for him, and then we went on some forty miles. And then he took 3 congestive chills with vomiting. The last chill killed him and they buried him in the woods away from any house or any place.

After my father died and I had seen so much trouble, first losing my Mother, and then my two brothers, and been left all alone with the exception of my brother Peter, I felt that I would rather die then live. But my time had not yet come, and so I had to struggle on with my friends almost all gone, and myself almost heart-broken. After arriving at Winters and staying there about 2 years, being with my step-mother, I started to Salt Lake with Mr. and Mrs. Key.

[It was] a thousand miles into the interior of North America. Not knowing whether I would live or die and not caring a great deal. But it seemed that I had to live and endure the great trials of another new country, besides running the risk of been scalped by the Indians, for I must tell you the country was new and full of hostile Indians who had not seen white people before.

[Remainder of letter lost—from Hannah Rogers]