Transcript

We were driven from the state of Missouri, and settled in Illinois, at Nauvoo, where we remained in peace for several years, and built a Temple and in June 27, 1844, our Prophet and Patriarch was murdered, and about the year 1846 we were broken up and had to flee to the Rocky Mountains, April 2, 1847.

This day the Pioneers began to leave the Council Bluffs or Winter Quarters for the Valley of the Great Salt Lake, to make the road and hunt a place for the Saints. I being one of them, and was unwell when I started, I suffered much of cold and hunger. When we got to the Green River I was taken down with cholera, or cholera morbus, and was brought to the point of death, and for 6 days and nights I took nothing in my stomach but cold water, and that distressed me so much. The road was new and rough, and we continued to travel and it seemed I must die, and I longed for death, my fare was course and scant.

When we got to the Valley many of us were out of provisions, July 24th, here we stayed about one month.

August 26th, we started for Council Bluffs, for my outfit to go back with I had but 2 quarts of parch corn and 3 quarts of course corn meal. I was sick all the way back, and suffered everything but death; many times I had nothing to eat, and sometimes I had a little poor buffalo bull meat. We returned back to the Bluffs about the last of October, and found my family well.