Transcript

Thomas was also called to go out and meet Captain Willey's hand cart company that was snowed in near Green River in the early winter of 1856. They were snowed in and camped on the banks of the Green River. The snow was so deep and the weather extremely cold that those poor emigrants were badly frozen. Many of them lost their fingers and toes. I have heard him tell of the terrible suffering of those people and how they were frozen. He said he suffered more on that trip than he did in the mobbings of Missouri and Illinois. He said that the odor from those frozen people was so terrible and rank that he and the teamsters who were hauling them and to sit out in front of the cover and pull the cover down between them so they could stand the odor, it was so terrible. While riding in the open he froze his own feet and ears and suffered terribly, as did many of the drivers. James Reid father of Robert Reid of Smithfield was one of the number he brought in and I have sat and listened to my father and Brother Reid tell of the terrible suffering they endured and the terrible condition they were in.