Transcript
Transcript for Summerhays, Joseph William, Reminiscences, 2, in Caleb Summerhays family research work, ca.1546-1954
W[illia]m. C. Staines was
energetic immigration agent during the year 1866. During one of his talks that I listened to he advised the young men to hire out to some of the trains that were going to cross the Plains and work their passage. This I did. I found Captain Scott's train and made arrangements with him to drive a Church team across the plains. I was nearly two months before we left the Missouri River. In the meantime I hired out doing such jobs as I could. With the means I thus earned, I supported myself for the two months and succeeded in getting a meager outfit of clothes which I needed badly to cross the plains. Captain Scott's train pulled out of Wyoming for S.L. on the ninth of August, 1866. I drove a Second Ward Team. We arrived in S.L. on the eleventh of October following. During the trip across the plains we had some experiences with the Indians. We also had some bad snowstorms in which many of our cattle died. The company of immigrants appeared to be a sickly one and we burried more people on the plains that year than any other outfit with the exception of Captain Lowry' whose was the last train of the season and was behind us.