Transcript

Having drawn our pay and procured an out-fit, we prepared to return to our homes by way of Sutter's Fort across the North Pass of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The old Emigrant trail. While crossing the mountains, we met Capt. Brown and Sam Brannan from Salt Lake Valley. Brown to draw the pay for his company and Brannan to meet the company of Saints who had gone to California by water.

The returning men of the Battalion divided into three squads on their return trip and I was in company with Bros [Daniel] Tyler, Hancock and others. We met Brown near where the company of emigrants, en route to Cal[ifornia]. had perished the winter before. We camped there and while there and I went hunting and found their camp and saw the skeletons and bones of those unfortunate people lying on the ground unburied.

Brown brought word from Brigham Young that those of the Battalion who had not provisions to last them in Salt Lake Valley had better remain in California during the winter.

Some of the bretheren turned back and a few others continued eastward. I was one of the latter number, and we arrived in Salt Lake Valley the 16th of October 1847.