Transcript

So when Spring came, all that could get redy gathered near the Ferry. & ware organized into Companies.) & crossed with Captins of fifties, & of tens the River, & Started for Salt Lake valley. Benjamin Gardner was appointed Captain of the fifty that I traveled in, & I was appointed Captain over one of the tens in Capt. Gardners Company. & we traveled on without much dificulty, until the c[h]olera broke out among us. Then we had a terable time with that awful Diseas. There was 16 that Died in Capt. Gardner Company. My Father, & his wife, my step mother, & my Brother Horace, traveled with me. We traveled on until we Came near the, Black hills, to a stream Called deer Creek, & there we lay over a day for the women to wash, & straiten up a little, & myself Jude Allen, & Jessee Habson went out on a hunt, & it being a very warm day, I got very thursty, & came very near dying, by drinking, to much alkaly water. we killed one Buffalo, & returned to Camp in the night[.] the next day the Company Started on, & I had to get another Man to drive my team, & I suffered terably all that day, & all that night, & was not able to take care of my team. The next [day] came, & I was still worse & I told Capt. Gardner, that I could not travel that day, & they could go on, & If I lived I would Come on, & if I died I might be burried there as well as any whare, & he Said they would lay by that day, & perhaps, I would be able to travel the next day. And I suffered terable that day, & they kep giveing me grees vinegar, & Sour bull berries, until they got the Strength of the alkaly killed, & then I began to feel a little better, & the next day, we traveld on, & I kep geting better, & in a fiew days I got so th[at] I could drive my own team. That was the first time in my life that I thought I was going to Die. We continued traveling on, & on the 24 day of september we arived in Salt lake City.