Transcript

We stayed there [Lexington, Missouri] six weeks while my mother and father were busy repairing the damage done to our belongings. My father bought three yoke of oxen, a wagon, a tent, and everything we needed to make the trip. We were as well fitted out as we could be; plenty to eat and would get fresh water whenever we could to be carried in five gallon kegs and swung under the wagon. The cattle sometimes would die from drinking the water of the Plains, one of our best oxen died and we had to put a cow in the place. Then we had one yoke of oxen, one yoke with an ox and a cow, and one yoke with two cows, making three yoke in all. There was plenty of grass along the way. At night we would milk and set it in pans under the wagon, in the morning we would take the cream off and put it in a little stone jar with a dash. By night it would be churned to butter with the jolt of the wagon.

My mother baked a lot of crackers before we started and we had some of them when we got in Salt Lake. They were made out of just flour, salt, and lard. They were rolled out and the dough pounded to make them light. We had never heard of baking powder or soda. We had yeast cakes that mother made before we left and she would make bread and bake it on step stones that had belonged to Jeff (McCullough).

When we had traveled about 100 miles, my father took the cholera and died. He was buried at Woodriver [Wood River] without a coffin. He was wrapped in a heavy quilt. His death occurred July 5, 1852. On the 8th of the same month my oldest brother died.

He said, "I want to be baptized before I die." Jeff McCullough baptized him. He died and was buried the next morning.

Our trip from then on was uneventful. We were about three months making the trip and arrived in Salt Lake the 23rd of Sept. 1852.