Transcript

In the spring of 1849 I prepared to move to the Great Salt Lake Valley & was appointed by Brother G.A. Smith & E.T. Benson to lead a company to the valley.

We started from Winter Quarters 10 July 1849. Fully organized, there was captains of ten: Isaac Clark, Wm. B. Huntington, Elam Ludington, Augustus Farnham, Moses Clawson & A. P. Rockwood[, as] Marshall. We had 72 wagons, heavily loaded with families, provisions, merchandise, household goods, farming & merchandise tools, etc.

After a long & weary journey of hardships & fatigue through a dreary wilderness without any inhabitants except Indians, we arrived in Great Salt Lake Valley, 25 Oct.; a distance of over 1000 miles), without any very serious accidents, there being but one death, that of a little sickly child, & very little sickness on the route, though we encountered heat, cold, rain & snow. In one snow storm in Willowcreek the snow fell 18 inches deep, & we lost 62 head of cattle; & pigs & chickens froze to death.