Transcript

Transcript for Young, Franklin Wheeler, Young family genealogy [ca. 1889-1899], fd. 1, 4-6

In the spring of 1847 my father [Lorenzo Dow Young] went in the first company of Pioneers, with Prest. Brigham Young, and my brother John R[ay]. [Young] and I were left to come on later, with one ox team of two yoke of oxen, to bring my father's second family. We had a few cows that were put in with, and helped to make up the company cow herd; and the same with a few sheep we had, and my brother, 10 years old, and I 8 years old, had to help drive the cow herd one week, and the sheep herd the next, and then with the cows again, but other people were just as well, or bad off, which shall I call? one man having a few cows, but no boys, had to send a girl, some 8 or 10 years old to help drive the cows. One day we got away behind the train with the cow herd, and this poor girl gave out, and would have been left behind, but us boys caught a yearling heifer and got the poor, tired little Miss on to the heifer, astride? yes, and brought her safe into camp. and she live and grew and came to be a very nice lady.

One day I was riding in the wagon, and while moving along, I slipped down on to the wagon tongue, and slipped <and> fell to the ground, the front wheel passed over both my legs just above the ankles, but no bones were broken, and I got a ride for a week or ten days, before I was able to drive cows again. On the way I saw thousands, yes, tens of thousands of buffalos. The hills being black with them for miles & miles

Our company had with it an old cannon, mounted on two wheles [wheels]. It was known as the "Old Sow". One morning while we were camped just below Laramie, on the bank of the Platt[e] river, in respons[e] to a request brought by a messenger from Capt. John Taylor (afterwards President Taylor) the cannon was fired, just to let the Indians know we had a big gun. Just as they were about to fire the cannon, I, not knowin<g> of the intention, rode a little mule down a "buffalo trail" into the river to let the mule drink. The bank was steep, the mules front feet were in the water up to its knees, when"bang" went the Old Sow. the mule jumped backward, and I went forward head first into the river, and it over my head, but I hung to the halter rope and "Peggy" pulled me out! Is it any wonder I have always had a kindly feeling for a mule ever since Seeing this one saved me from floating down the river to become food for fishes? This same day a big, big Indian chief learning that I had no father there wanted to buy me, and offered five ponies and two mules for me. I thought it was more than I was worth, and went and hid under some bedding in the wagon. When asked what he wanted me for, the big Cheif [chief] said I should sleep in his lodge,ride a good horse and learn to kill buffalo, and when grown Should have his own little girl for a wife, and be a big cheif too. Lo, how glad I am they did not sell me, for then I could never have been your loving Father.

My dear daughter:

We came across the plains in Capt. Jedediah M. Grant's fifty, and Isaac Chase's ten. At Green river I was afraid to ride across the river in the wagon, and proposed to wade the stream, but Capt. Chase saw me, and called out to me in a very earnest way "Here, what are you up to! Get in that wagon this minute." I obeyed, and no doubt saved my life by so doing, for the stream was too deep and swift for me to wade it.

The day we met Prest. B[righam].Young and the returning Pioneers we camped early, and there was a time of rejoicing, and a meeting held in the afternoon, and, as I remember a dance in the evening, and while our young and able men were dancing, the Indians were quietly driving off ever so many of our horses and mules, among them little "Peggy" that dumped me in the Platt[e] river, and then pulled me out in the same movement. The loss of so many horses and mules, crippled the company very much.

We arrived in Salt Lake Valley on the 4th day of October 1847.