Robert Williams autobiography, circa 1859, 118-25.
- Source Locations
- Church History Library, MS 8358
- Related Companies
- John Brown Company (1851)
. . . I bid him enter says I George you are welcome to my humble fair [fare] and I showed him my bead [bed] 2 buffalow Robes for me and my boy Alfred but we had plenty of Butter Flour, Eggs, Salt Fish & George told me of his words with his wife and he remained with me 2 weeks hid up, to try to make his wife better in her feelings for she was a rip with tongue but a good wife to him and a kind hearted woman[.] I remember it thunderd and lightned as if the very heavens were breaking George says to me Robert, the Lord impresses my mind that I must take you with me to the Mountins will you go[.] certainly says I[,] you know I am a minuet [minute] man[.] what will you leave your house hear, and land, yes says I. all I had was a broken trunk with my Shirt, and boys in it, says he Robert go and See Patterson my Man[.] tell him to come up hear[.] Don’t tell Mrs. Watt what you have come for, nor yet let her know I am up hear at your house. I goes Directed but seen the Old Mother Mrs Brown[.] she told me w[h]ere Patterson was and we came to George, the orders given; he told the other man I was going with him but George says you are sick, [.] I dont want you to do much on your way [.] I shall drive and do much[.] how the sean [scene] changed on the way. me and Patterson worked heard [hard] to go through[,] no pay w[h]ile George set in his waggon Playing some Music and appeared a Dandy Spirit[.] we had to toil through mud[,] slosh and empty his Dirty s— k – P. – to lazy to get out of his Waggon to accommodate Natur, he would not go without the Camp with paddle in hand, Dig a hole as in Moses time, and cover it up, to keep the Camp Clean, too Dirty for us Lions, who love the woods to smell[.] when we got 200 miles on the Plains from Winter Quarters a Mighty Storm Came up the Laws of Natur Angry it thunderd, lightned, hailed, and blew[,] tore the Waggons Covers off, tents flying up in the air, as if the Lawes of Natur was Changing, my boy with me and the other man Patterson was lying under the tent, we held the Poles of the tent, but no good, George called out from his comfortable cosy waggon, Oh! Robert come and save my waggon, I run and held to the cover untill my fingers were numed with Cold[.] I only had my shirt on, as Naked as Adam[,] the Hail Pelting on my Bear [bare] Head and rain[.] did not my lappit of my Shirt tail clung to my rump part it nearly Did, the Oxen were in the Correll and their certainly would have been soon a Stamppee [stampede] with them if the waggon cover had bloon over but like a Jolly Fox of the Mormon Ship I held his cover [.] Then roar went the wind, rip went the poles, up flew the tent, out run Alf, my boy[,] Father, Father, Father, Patterson then had to leave the shelter but he would have stuck under tent as long as their had been a thread.