Transcript

We had some sheep we sheared and sold, we corded and spun the wool before we started for the Valley. I was fourteen years old at this time. My father drove the teams, my brother Joel drove the team for James Pollock. My mother and myself walked cows. The first buffalo we saw was killed by Parley Pratt Richardson, we saw a lot of buffalo after that.

We traveled along the Platt River. When wood was scarce we burned buffalo chips. The Sioux tribe of Indians visited us, they were a fine looking tribe. We had to camp often to rest our teams and wash our clothes. We made a corral of the wagons sometimes. I would go ahead of the wagons we had to keep quite close for fear of the Indians We did not know just where we were going until we met the first pioneers coming back from the Valley.

We camped on the Platt[e] River, when we heard a herd of buffalo coming down to drink. They would have run right through the camp but the men shot at them and the women shouted and they went by, and just missed the wagons. If they had gone through the camp they would have destroyed all we had, and killed many people. The buffalo were a benefit to us for their meat also for their chips, which we had to burn when wood was scarce. Sometimes we would hear Indians and the men would go ahead, but most of the time it would turn out to be praire-dogs. I had mountain fever at this time, there was six days I didn't keep anything on my stomach and had to walk most of the time and drive cows. My mother got some whisky from sister Thatcher and gave it to me clear, it broke up the fever and cured me. Father then come down with it and was sick two weeks. Mother could not drive the oxen, so I drove them and she drove the cows until father got well.

We arrived in the Valley of the mountains September 22, 1847