Transcript

I started for Salt Lake along in the last part of August with three yoke of cattle and a good wagon. I reported to Bishop Hunter at the tithing yard. On the way to Salt Lake, I had picked up three yoke of cattle that had been volunteered. One yoke by a man named Cherry, one by Ziras Kilburn, and one yoke by a man whose name I have forgotten. While I was driving around picking up my supplies, I was using my whip pretty freely. Bishop Hunter was standing on the platform watching me and when I drove up to the platform to get my flour, he made a remark about me being an ox driver and said he had a yoke of cattle of his own that he wanted me to take. I refused as I thought I had about all I could handle, but he would not listen to me and insisted on my taking his along. This made me seven yoke to look after. The orders were for each man to take care of the cattle he was driving and not get them mixed with the other cattle. I then left for the meeting place which was between the Big and Little Mountain laying directly east of Salt Lake City. Arriving there, we waited for the rest of the volunteers until Monday morning. In the party there were about five wagons and sixty yoke of cattle under the leadership of Captain Fuller.

We met the first party on Monday on the East Canyon stream. They were in good shape and they did not need any help. We did not meet any more until we arrived at Quaking Asp Ridge, where we met another company of fifty who went on through without any assistance. We then met companies every little ways all in good condition. When we got to Big Bend on the Sweet Water, Captain Fuller came to Dad Blodgett and asked him if he and Joe Wadsworth could take sixteen yoke of cattle and go and meet the last company. Dad Blodgett did not want to go and told the Captain that he didn’t think Joe would go. The Captain asked him if he would go if I would and he said yea. He then came to me and asked me if I would go if Dad Blodgett would go and I, thinking Dad Blodgett wouldn’t go, answered yes. It so happened that he and I had to go. I was then a boy of 21 years of age and Blodgett was a man of 60 years past and a cripple at that.

We then started out with 16 yoke of cattle to meet the last company. We met them at Devil Lake on the Sweet Water. If it had not been for help, they would never have reached the Great Salt Lake. We took their cattle off and put our cattle on as we would not have the poor and fat cattle mixed. When we met them, they were about discouraged, but their spirits rose when they saw us coming. We stayed over night and got an early start on our way back. On the second or third day on our way home, a big snow storm came up. It was so severe that we pulled in the willows to camp for the night.

On getting up in the morning, imagine our surprise to find all our cattle gone. They had broken away in the night and went south with the storm. Blodgett and I and several others started out to find the cattle. Blodgett and I stayed together, and the others separated going in all directions. Blodgett and I stayed together until noon and then we separated. He finally found the trail where the cattle crossed the creek and found the cattle several miles south on good feed. The cattle were driven back and watched until the next morning as it was too late to travel any that day. Everything went all right with us but the weather was freezing cold.

We caught the Sugar Train that was one day ahead of us. They had a hard time as 40 head of their cattle had frozen the night before. They had to leave 10 wagons and had to go back for them the next spring. We left them and came on through, arriving in Salt Lake without further trouble in the first part of November.