Transcript

Transcript for William Holmes Walker, The Life Incidents and Travels of Elder William Holmes Walker and His Association with Joseph Smith, the Prophet (Elizabeth Jane Walker Piepgrass, 1943), 15-16

The 29th of May the detachment left Pueblo and the 16th of June reached Fort Laramie.

I, in company with 12 others, went on in advance and overtook the Pioneers at Green River. From this point a company of 10, composed of Pioneers and Battalion went back to meet the emigration of the Pioneers. Phinus Young, Thomas Grover, Aaron Farr and others. With a light wagon, with boards on the bottom on which to carry our bedding and provisions.

It was expected that we would meet them before arriving at Laramie: but we were disappointed when we arrived there. We were out of provisions and could not get but a small supply, indeed, at any price.

We were in hopes to meet the first company every day and almost every hour. We traveled on in an Indian country and no game to be seen. Our provisions entirely gone, we lived on chokecherries and wild currants six days, with one rabbit to divide between ten of us. We encountered two heavy storms (without tent or cover). The last storm we had on Platte Bottoms laid in water about six inches deep. The wind being too cold to stand up and the bluffs too far off to reach, we camped. Next morning we went to the bluff for our horses and discovered the camp about five miles distant. We met them near Ft. Carney [Kearny].

For several days I had to ride with a pocket handkerchief tied on. Foot exposed to the sun, as my moccasin, the only thing I had in the shape of shoes were worn out.

In this condition I met my wife Olive H., who drove two yoke of oxen the most of the way from the Missouri River and was now sick and worn out with fatigue. We arrived with the first company of emigrants September 19th, 1847.