Transcript
Transcript for "Sketch of Sarah Birch Waters."
We then traveled on daily for about three hundred miles to Council Bluffs where we stopped to get more supplies and spend the Fourth of July. Here others joined our company and we were more completely organized, with Cyrus H. Wheelock for Captain to conduct us across the plains. I was to pay for my transportation by cooking, washing, and either leading or carrying one of my sister's children.
After traveling several days through swamps and mud we crossed the Missouri river and camped for another week at Winter Quarters where so many of the Saints died when they were driven from their homes in mid-winter. There were still traces of their huts and dug-outs. It brought very solemn feelings to us as we looked over the situation and walked upon the ground where there had been so much death and suffering, and as we traveled on we daily passed graves where some had fallen by the wayside unable to travel farther. Nothing very particular happened to our company the rest of the journey until we reached what was known as "Little Mountain" where we camped for the last night before reaching Salt Lake City.
In the morning after breakfast myself and two or three others started out ahead of the teams for the City. I do not remember how far it was but we did not think it far. After coming thirteen hundred miles by land, walking most of the way, we had learned pretty well how it was done. We had not gone far when we were over-taken by some people who had met our company to look for friends when they were expecting, but, failing to find them, they were returning. They invited us to ride, took us to their home in Salt Lake, gave us our supper, and made us comfortable until our wagons came in after dark, October sixth, 1853. It would be impossible to tell how thankful we were to those people and that we had reached our destination.