History of My Life

HISTORY OF MY LIFE

by Mariah Walker Burston Wheeler 1837-1930

Transcribed by Richard Keller Preece of Mesa Arizona from manuscript

I have often thought I would write a short history of my life thinking perhaps my children would like to know something about our folks in the old country, but lack of time or some other drawback kept me from starting it. Perhaps it is because I was afraid I could not find the time to finish it or because it is so long since we came to America that I have forgotten many things that would be perhaps interesting, but I think it as well to tell what I can remember as waiting longer may cause me to forget what I do know, and remember -- memory is very treacherous.

Chapter One ENGLAND

I was born in Upper Bullingham Herefordshire parish on my father's estate, Little Holm, as well all or most all my sisters and brother, My brother was the youngest of the family and father was very proud when he was told he had a son... as he had often wished for a boy. But three of my sisters died young. My eldest sister Caroline died when a blooming beautiful girl of seventeen. She died of consumption (Tuberculosis) or pneumonia. She had started to learn the millinery business and had advanced considerably in her trade for she had both taste and skill in trimming bonnets and hats and was generally called on to trim hats for customers that were very particular, but she caught cold from getting her feet wet going to or from her work and sat with her feet wet instead of changing them. The other children that died were both infants or at least not over three years old. I think Betsy was only two when she died, but I don't her nor do I scarcely remember Ellen as I was not over three years old when she died.

The longest incident I remember, and it is only partially, was when my mother took me with her to visit an aged aunt of hers. She was her father's (Henry Walker) sister and her name was Betty Gulliam. She lived on a farm about nine or ten miles from our house (in England) and the name of the farm was Killpeck. It was a fine farm, quite large I should guess, for they had quite a lot of cattle and cows, sheep, horses, barns, and outhouses. But the old lady was a widow and her daughter and son-in-law ran the farm.

His name was Williams.

They had one son, a boy three or four years old with black eyes, and my mother told me to go play with that pretty black-eyed boy, but I was shy at first, but finally went into the field where there was lots of green peas, we ate a lot, then went back into the garden where there were currants, gooseberries, raspberries, cherries, then into the chicken yard. When we got tired we went into the house where a fine dinner was ready.

I think Mother stayed several days, but I have no recollection of how long. I was not over two and a half years or less than three years old and although there was doubtless many incidents happened about that time; I don't distinctly remember.

But as we were going home we had to go through a meadow where a lot of cattle were feeding, I think they were cattle belonging to Mother's aunt. A bull ran after us and Mother picked me up and ran. She had to cross a footbridge over a creek and thought the bull would be stopped, but he crossed over and after us again. We ran to a stile

(Steps going over a fence or hedge) on one side of the meadow and got over just as the bull came up behind us. We had come by a carriage or stage and had to walk a half a mile or a mile to the road where we met the stage.

Father and Mother and their family lived in a stone cottage belonging to grandfather's estate for a few years after they were married, but moved into grandfather's house after he died, which was when I was about five or six years old.

When I was about four years old Aunt Catherine (Preece), Mother's sister, came on a visit to see mother and when she went back she took me with her for I was her favorite of mother's children. We traveled part of the way by night and it was quite late when we got there, to aunt's house. I was asleep and she put me to bed. I was too sleepy to eat my supper.

I stayed several weeks there, but can't say just how long it was. It was springtime, for I remember the violets, daisies, and primroses that were in bloom. Aunt (Catherine) had no children of her own and used to pet me and let me have my way. I used to ramble away to pick flowers and gave her lots of trouble to hunt me up. I went one day across the road from the house to a spring in a field, belonging to aunt, and sat down awhile then went away and rambled away quite a distance. There was a small wood or plantation of timber perhaps ten or twenty acres. I went there and after picking a handful of flowers went to sleep. Aunt, in the meantime, missed me. She went in search of me and found my bonnet by the spring. She thought I had drowned. The spring was quite deep but after feeling with a stick or hoe she found I was not in the spring, and started to hunt me elsewhere. She got her husband and some neighbors to help. Finally after quite a hunt, they found me in the wood asleep.

Aunt (Catherine) used to visit quite a long among the neighbors and always took me along. Some of the neighbors were rough and rather ignorant, at least that is the impression I have of them, since I became old enough to think. But there were several nice people whose houses I used to like to go to.

One was a Mrs. Bowan, who had a nice comfortable stone cottage with a garden and flower garden attached. She had lots of nice flowers and quite a variety, especially dahlias, tulips, and pansies. She used to give me some sometimes on condition I did not pick or bother them, and I never did; for although often tempted to. I feared Aunt would not let me go along with her if I did, as she told me she would not. This woman, I think, was a widow as she was nearly always alone and had no children, but she was good to me, and Aunt sometimes stayed to tea. But there was another thing I used to like to go there for. This lady had a rich neighbor who lived only a short distance from her and only a wall divided her garden from his park and there were steps up over the wall and I used to amuse myself looking over the steps while she and Aunt had their visit. There were some things strange to me in that park, some peacocks the first I had ever seen, and some swans in a pond. Their house was a short distance off and I could see the beautiful lawn filled with flowers and the fine house besides the cows and other animals. I always disliked going to some of the neighbors for there were some rough little children who swore and I knew it was wrong, as mother had told us it was wrong.

After a while father came to take me home, but aunt said to let me stay awhile longer and she would bring me home. Aunt had some money left when her grandfather died with which she bought a few stock for the farm she lived on and also her furniture, but she married a coarse drunkard of a man who spent all or nearly all of his earnings in 2

drink. He was a coal miner and her folks were opposed to her marrying him on account of his drinking habits, but it was no use and like many, to provide for herself she took in work washing. At last she was obliged to give up the farm and go and work out. He would always find her and compel her to leave her place and go and live with him promising to do better, but only for a short time. At last she got a place a long way from where he was.

I think mother told her of it and she left him and went there. He did not know where she was. She was a good cook and housekeeper.

The laws of England at that time compel a woman to live with her husband if he wanted her. I believe the law is changed now and ought to have been then. But, I am straying from my story.

Aunt lived at that place, I think, until she joined the Mormon Church. She came to America with my parents and family in 1853, their destination being Utah. But , as I said before, Aunt Catherine took me home in due time. I can't remember how long I stayed after father's visit. Being so small I can't remember half of the incidents that happened then. But soon after some Elders from the Latter-day Saints Church came to our house.

Father, I think, heard them preach and being convinced of the truth of their doctrine, got baptized. The name of one of the Elders was Blakely, but the other I have forgotten.

Father was the only one in that vicinity that joined at that time, and for a long time. I do not remember the date, but know it was quite a while before the martyrdom of Joseph Smith and Hyrum Smith (Thursday, 27 June 1844.) I think it must have been about 1838 or 1839 (Most of the Apostles started on a mission to England in August 1839.

Missionary work was strong in the Herefordshire area in March 1840.) But can't remember, as these incidents are what I have heard, It was several years before any more people were baptized in that neighborhood.

Then several others came in that included my mother, two or three of my sisters, Anne, Eliza, and I think Sarah, but am not certain about the latter, at that time, although she was baptized later on. My mother's brothers James Preece (Also Richard Preece) and family, my Uncle Thomas Walker also came in about the same time and a little later others came and joined our church.

Other Elders from America came and we had a branch organized of which my father (Henry Walker) was ordained Presiding Elder. After that we were never left long without some Elder from America or from a distant part of England. Then there was a branch at Orcop about five miles off (eight or nine miles south and a bit west of Hereford) and a branch at Garway (A couple of miles south southwest of Orcop.) The Elders from each place used to visit in turns on Sunday and preach. Some were working men who worked hard all week then walked from five to ten miles on Sundays in order that all the Saints may have meetings on Sunday and hear the word of God. It was sometime before the Church had moved to Salt Lake and was very poor, it was therefore with difficulty and dangers that they undertook to cross the Great Plains. To go on missions they had to go on packhorse or covered wagon as best they could. They always made our house their home when in the neighborhood.

Father, who had long thought of emigrating to some foreign land Australia was the place he intended going being influenced mostly by an old farmer, a neighbor of ours named Vaughn, who with his family went to Australia and wrote good accounts of the country. So, father had almost made up his mind to go there thinking there would be a better chance for his family to do better for themselves in a new country than in old 3

England especially as his farm was small and would not be much divided up. He inherited it from his mother.

Her mother and father were well off, he being in business of some kind, which I have forgotten, but think hatting and glove making was the business of her grandfather.

Her mother, I believe, was the daughter of some man high in society. I think, he was a knight of some title, but I never heard my parents say much only that she was the granddaughter of some big bug. I got all or nearly all I know of her from an old woman who used to live in my grandfather's family and told me she had carried my father many times when he was a baby and a big fat fellow.

His mother, who was a small delicate lady, could scarcely pack him. Her father disinherited her when she married, although she was an only child, because she chose to marry a man she loved and whom they thought not good enough for their daughter. He was a respectful young farmer and his father was well to do, but they objected to him. But her uncle who was well off and I think a bachelor gave her the farm, which was afterwards my fathers, for a wedding present. It was about twenty or twenty-five acres at first with several houses on it, which they rented. But grandfather, who was not as good a manager he ought to be, sold some of the land with her consent. I think five or six acres.

Father, after he came into possession, built two more houses on the place, which he rented with a garden to each for a fair rent.

My parents had nine children, eight girls and one boy, he being the youngest; but father and mother were honest and industrious people and made a good living off the place grandfather had found hard to get along and keep out of debt. The reason was grandmother had been raised tenderly and well educated and had never learned much about work or housekeeping so she had to hire a girl to do her work and he hired someone all the time and she was not strong. Therefore, they had to sell some of the land that ought to have been my father's.

My parents were well respected where they were known and much regret was expressed at their leaving for America.

Grandmother Walker (Mary Ann Arkwright Walker) only had two children, both boys, of which my father was the oldest and of course the heir. There was no will left by his parents and of course father could have taken all of the property, but he was not selfish so he gave his brother two houses and about two acres of land. He being a bachelor 'twas all he could expect.

Father's family relations on his father's side were few as far as we know. His grandfather Walker's folks were Worcestershire folks and a farmer well to do. He had three sons, Thomas, Henry, and William. Grandfather Walker's name was Thomas. Henry was an old bachelor. I think he was the oldest. William was the oldest, but I don't know if he had any children. I think not so my father was rightful heir to all their property when they died. Father's uncle Henry was well off, but I don't know how much he was worth. I have heard say he made his money in business. I am almost certain he left an estate, a very nice place in Worcestershire as well as some money. I think he intended to leave it to father, but I think, he was offended with father for something. I think he left it to someone else.

My brother (John Henry Walker), when he was in England about two years ago, tried to find some family records of births, deaths, and marriages, but it seems as if the family records had been destroyed. As it was hard to trace them out without costing 4

more than he could afford. I think the Parish where grandfather's folks lived was Strond or Stronde, Worcestershire. My father said he had a fine place and kept servants and very likely left his property to them, unless Uncle William Walker, his brother, had an heir, then he most likely left all his property to him.

Of my mother's family (Preece) I know little, except her brothers and sisters and some of them were dead when I was born. But she had ten brothers and sisters or grandmother Preece) had nine children by her first husband and two when she was married to grandfather, a boy and a girl. She was a widow when she was married to grandfather. He was a farmer and rented a farm-adjoining grandfather Walkers where he lived until he had raised his family. There were five girls and four boys besides his stepchildren. He was an honest industrious man who tried to raise them up right. Most of the boys learned trades, but uncle John kept and rented the same old place as long as he lived. People did not move around there like they do in this country and a family would often live in the same place for two or three generations.

Grandmother Preece was half Welch and like most of her country's people was thrifty and industrious, a good housekeeper and dairy woman. For women always attended the dairy work there. She also made all her girls work as did all farmers' wives. Working folks in those days used to spin all their flax and wool that made all their clothes. A girl was expected to spin all the flax she needed to make her sheets and towels when she was married and also to make herself a quilt or two. But mother said a calico dress was thought fine enough to go to church in. It was much better calico then than now as it was mostly spun and woven by hand and not machinery as now. (Calico: originally a cotton cloth from India; In England it was unprinted and uncolored. There were several kinds of cotton calico cloth.) Mother learned the dress making and of course made all the family dresses besides earning money, making dresses for others.

Grandfather Preece got killed before all his family was grown up. He had been away from home with his team of three or four horses. One of his boys went with him and I think he was not over fourteen or fifteen years old. They had taken a load of something, wheat I think, to sell and were coming home. It was dark and the road, was a by-road, the boy was driving and his father sat on the rough side of the wagon and fell under the wheels and was killed (4 October 1819, Callow, Herefordshire, England.) Of course it was a sad day for grandmother. She was again left a widow, but she did the best she could for her family. But, one by one they left and got married. I think some stayed with her to help her as long as she lived. Grandfather was a large man and she was short and fleshy.

My mother married my father and came to live at our old home. Uncle John also married and continued to rent the old farm after grandmother's death (10 June 1828, Callow, Herefordshire, England.) It was called the Brook Farm and is still occupied by some of his daughters who rent and carry on the farm by the help of a hired man or two.

Brother John (Walker, Born 6 September 1843) went to see them while on a mission to England (Mormon Church mission) two years ago in 1896 and 1897.

Uncle John Arnold Preece (Born about 16 December 1795) lived to a good old age and died a few years before my brother went there on a mission. His wife also survived him several years. They left a family of seven or eight children. All I believe that are alive are married, but the two who kept the old farm raise stock and poultry and are doing first rate.

5

Two of mother's brothers joined this church with their families and came to America intending to go to Utah, but unfortunately both brothers died before they got there. Uncle Richard (Preece) and family left in 1851 but his money was not enough to bring them clear through, so he stopped at Council Bluffs (Kanesville), Iowa to try and make enough to go on, but he got the chills and fever and died. I think, perhaps, he had some other fever besides. His family came on as best they could; some are still living here.

My other Uncle James Preece, who was an invalid, died on the ship before he arrived at New Orleans while on the Mississippi River and buried at New Orleans (The ship ´International sailed from Liverpool England, on Monday 28 February 1853 with 425 Saints under the direction of Christopher, and arrived in New Orleans, Saturday 23 April 1853.) His family went on with the Saints to Keokuk (Iowa, May 1853) where there was a camp of Mormons fitting out to go to Utah. His wife and two boys traveled to Kanesville (Council Bluffs, Iowa) with us where they stayed. That is, his wife and one boy, but the other came on with the company to Utah (Company 3, under the direction of Captain Jesse W. Crosby, left Kanesville, 1 July 1853 with 78 people and 12 wagons, arriving Great Salt Lake City about 10 September 1853. ´Journal of History of the Latter-day Saints 19 August 1853 page 2.) where he stayed a few years then went back to look for his mother. We never saw him nor them again.

Mother's other brothers and sisters scattered. Some died and the rest we never saw after that.

There was not much of interest to tell of the events of the old home until we emigrated to America. Only such that may happen every day. We went to school. There were no free public schools in England. The only school was such as was kept up by some ladies who had means to hire teachers and who interested themselves in getting the children educated. But a strange prejudice some folks entertained against sending their children there. It was mostly folks who were the middle class and folks who were pretty comfortable in circumstances. They would not send their children to these schools because they were considered charity schools, and as they said they did not want their children to be educated by charity. Some could scarcely afford to pay for their tuition so some never got but meager schooling.

Mother sent us to several schools. The first I remember going to was a private school kept by an old couple named Cook who lived on a place of about six or seven acres.

He kept a day school to help him out with his living. I was but a small child then, not over four or five years old, and was only sent to school with my older sisters to be out of the way. After the old man died, which was soon after, we went to another school kept by a young married woman. This was my sister Sarah and I, for the others had quit school.

Then we went to an old or middle-aged man who kept a school at a place called Aconbury Hill. It was nearly three miles off and through timber and plantations of fir. It was a nice walk, but lonesome. This man had the name of being a good scholar and quite a lot of people, farmers and mechanics sent their children there. We went there two or three years and I used to enjoy the trip and liked the scholars. For the most part only some rough boys. I never did like rough boys and scarcely ever played with them, but they would tease us and say we were too proud, but we were not, only we did not like their company.

After that we went to a larger school at the City of Hereford started by a 6

clergyman at a cheaper rate for the benefit of those who could not afford a more expensive school. There were quite a lot of scholars, from eighty to a hundred, I think.

But I did not like the school for the big children used to tease me. Sarah did not mind it.

They called us country “greeneys” and which annoyed me very much. I was over sensitive.

We used to board at an aunt of my father, who kept a bakery. She was an old woman and her husband was childish. She had to run the business herself with the help of her daughter and was nice to us, especially when I did not feel well.

But the time came when I had to quit school. For all my sisters had gone except Sarah, and mother needed me at home to help as she said that I was better help than Sarah and she was going to learn a trade. My sister Sarah could sew and do the upstairs work, but did not like kitchen and dairy work. There were calves to feed, chickens to feed and errands to do. She could not get along without me and I stayed and always helped her to the best of my ability. Sometimes working the flower garden, picking or raking leaves, or weeding in the garden, or helping pick berries, gooseberries, raspberries, and when mother wanted to preserve I was generally kept busy, but sometimes rambled off to gather flowers, nuts, or to play. But those were the happy days of childhood, the happiest of my life when carefree I rambled over the meadows or wood sometimes with other children, sometimes alone.

We often had tea parties at our house to make money for missionaries (Mormon) who came there to preach and who went out without purse or script to preach and often needed clothes. Our house had a nice lawn shaded where in summer we put the tables for the party. Of course all the members lived within a few miles. Ten or twenty came to give their help to make some money. The folks also kept a tea garden where people from the city came in the summer time to spend a day or two or a change and to get a little fresh air. They would stay all day and sometimes all night. These were for the most part people of the middle class; doctors, mechanics, shopkeepers, etc., who could not spare the time to go to a fashionable place of pleasure resort, so came when they could in the country to eat strawberries and cream and blackberries of which there was an abundance. They ordered tea or coffee and seemed to enjoy themselves first rate. Of course, I had to help wait on them. Mother on such occasions had to get some help to clean house or wash the clothes.

We often had meetings (church) at our house as there were too few members in that part to afford to rent a meetinghouse. But soon more came into the church (Mormon), all of our family and father's brother, so we used to go to Hereford (About 4 miles north of Callow) and rent a room to hold meetings there and then at a Mr. John Verys, an old chum of fathers when he was a boy and to a place called Orcup (Orcop), some five miles off.

About that time we got acquainted with Thomas Wheeler who lived about three miles from our home. Also Joseph Gough from Orcup (Orcop.) Both young men became attached to our family, on to my sister Sarah and Wheeler to Anne.

CHAPTER TWO​ ​ON TO AMERICA

Some three years after father decided to go to America and Utah being the place he wanted to go, as that was where all the Saints had gone. The Mormons had a few years before (1847) settled in Salt Lake Valley. So in 1853 he sold out our old home in 7

England and started for America. It was in the latter part of February we left intending to go right on to Liverpool where our ship was. Just as we had sold out everything news came from Liverpool from Samuel Richards, the agent who had chartered the ship for our company, that the ship would not sail for two weeks.

There was nothing for us to do but engage lodgings to wait until it did sail. A friend of ours told our folks we could get rooms cheaper at Ludlow, a small town about thirty or thirty-five miles on our way (And about 30-35 miles southwest of Birmingham) so our folks decided to go there and stay until the ship sailed. The railroad from Ludlow to Hereford was not finished then so we hired two teams to carry our goods; one a large spring wagon with seats all around the sides and could carry twelve or fourteen folks; the other a heavy wagon to carry the luggage.

It was a cold, clean, but frosty morning when we started on our journey and it was quite late when we got to Ludlow. Some of the folks went ahead and got supper. The rooms had been rented already by our friend or had all ready been bargained for before hand so we took possession. We were tired and glad to get to the end of day's journey.

We stayed there for about two weeks and enjoyed it first rate. Several others, girls and myself of the company included my sisters and several young men used to walk around everyday to see the sights. The old Castle of Ludlow was a favorite wall; also down the Ludlow River that ran close to the walls of the castle.

At last the order came to go, as the ship was to sail in a day or two. So we went to Liverpool where our passage had already been engaged. We stayed about two days in Liverpool to Old England and our old home. (The ship International sailed from Liverpool, England on Monday, 28 February 1853.)

There were about 45 emigrants on the ship besides the crew. They were all Saints and bound for Utah. The name of the ship was the ´International Captain Brown±. We had a very rough time for two or three weeks and on Easter Sunday we decided to fast and pray for better weather.

An old soldier (sailor) on board said he had been shipwrecked three times and twice on Easter Sunday. Nearly everyone was sea sick at first and come all the way.

After the storm abated we had a merry and jolly time. There were lots of young folks and they all tried to make the time pass as pleasantly as possible. There were games, songs, recitations, music, reading, and dancing. And although we were on board about seven weeks or more the time did not seem long. There were about three or four deaths on board including our Uncle James Preece who died just before we landed at New Orleans. Besides, we had five weddings, four on the 6th of April, the day the Church was organized (1830.) There was one (wedding) afterward.

The crew consisted of a Captain, three Mates, a Steward, a Doctor, a Carpenter, a cook, and eighteen sailors. All of them but the steward and wife, doctor, third mate and the cook joined our religion. The cook was a Catholic. Some came on to Utah. Some of the sailors came as far as Kanesville, then back on the boat to St. Louis not liking the mode of travel. But there were some came to Utah and made their homes.

When we got to New Orleans (23 April 1853) the first duty was to bury our uncle.

We spent about two days there in which we spent some of the time going around to see the city. I do not think it was a very nice place. There were such a lot of rough people, but we did not get acquainted with many citizens. My impression was made from those I saw in the streets, swearing and rough behavior in general. There were more Negroes 8

there than I ever saw before or since in one place. But it was not the Negroes that seemed so rough. They seemed polite to the white folks. The markets were loaded with meat, fish, and vegetables, but none seemed nice and fresh, perhaps on account of the hot weather. It was April, I think it was the twentieth, but I am not sure.

In the crowd that thronged the streets I got separated from my party and I went to try and find my way back to the ship for our folks were aboard the boat that was to take us to St. Louis. I am pretty good at finding my way, but in a strange city it is more difficult with the streets full of strangers. (Mariah was about 17 years old at this time.)

So I wandered around for sometime and finally came across some of the ship's company and went with them to several places and to a restaurant where we got an oyster dinner and then back to the ship. They were married folks. I went with two men and their wives and I think one child. My folks got back to the ship in the meantime and were alarmed at my not being there as it was not a safe place for a young girl child as I was to be alone in.

But I soon came back all right.

Our folks did not want to go to any more expense than they could help as we were a large family including father's family and two son-in-laws and our aunt, mother's sister (Ann Preece Walker) who is now a widow and Uncle Thomas Walker. We were all in the same crowd. Our family, then mother's sister-in-law (James Preece's widow) and her two boys had to be brought along. Father helped quite a number of folks to come. Besides he money to some others and loaned money to be paid when we got there and got to making something. But most of it he never got. Some could not raise the money and others, I guess, did not try. He got some of it, I think, but how much I never knew. There was an old Welsh woman, a widow past sixty, who wanted to come, but could not raise enough money. As she had once been very kind to mother and sisters who had been on a visit to the neighborhood where she lived, mother persuaded father to let her have enough money to bring her out. She came with us.

Well we took the boat ‘Saint Nicolas to St. Louis and were about eight days on the way to St. Louis. The younger part of our family enjoyed the trip for young folks don't worry about things that they do when they get older and have the cares of a family to look after. So everything to me was new and interesting. I don't think all our ship's company went on the same boat (Mississippi River boat) although it was a new and large boat. But the larger part did. Some ate their meals in the cabin dining room, but those were folks who had means, they were those who were few in number. Those who wanted to boat themselves had a stove on the second deck as it was called, a place under the first cabin that was on the top of the steamer. There was considerable trouble to get room on the stove to cook for so many, but they would have gotten along well enough only for a woman, an American, I think she was a southerner. At any rate her actions would have proclaimed her not as virtuous as Caesar's wife. She thought everyone ought to give up their privilege to her. She thought she ought to monopolize the stove to the exemption of everyone else and would pull off the stove anything that was cooking if she wanted the place herself to cook. If anyone claimed they had as much right to the stove as she had she would say she would go see the Captain and he would see if an American women's rights should be trampled on. So, some went without tea or coffee rather than have a fuss.

The trees were all out in leafe when we came to New Orleans, but we found the father we went up the river (Mississippi) the later the spring was. When we got to 9

Keokuk (Iowa) the buds were scarcely open. We stopped on Sunday at a place called Red River (Louisiana, about half way between Baton Rouge and Natchez) to unload rails for a railroad that was being built somewhere near there. It was a deep forest full of flowers, also bogs and looked like a very unhealthy place. It was a fine forest, so some of us with father along, rambled in the woods while the men on the boat were unloading iron rails.

We went to a small farm some distance away where they had a nice house and garden. It was quite early, for we were not far, about two or three days travel from New Orleans.

It was the first farmhouse I had seen. Only rich planter's houses had we seen from the river. We stayed all day or at least until the men had unloaded the iron rails. The men were paid from three to five cents each for the rails and it generally took two to carry one rail.

My brother-in-law Thomas Wheeler, who was a stout young man carried one alone.

He was ambitious to make money, being a poor man, so he made about five dollars that day while lots (of men) loafed on shore. As it was Sunday they did not want to work.

Most of them needed the money too. But one man wanted Thomas Wheeler to loan him some money after as he wanted to buy something, but did not know whether he could ever pay him back again. Thomas Wheeler asked him why he did not earn it by carrying rails.

He said he did not work on Sundays, but (he) was willing to spend what others earned on Sunday.

The boat went on. She was about the best boat on the river at that time and was a new one. The Captain used to like to run races when any boat tried to pass him. There were several that tried, but failed and on boat blew up by putting on too much steam.

She was on old one (The boat that blew up.) The way those boat hands did swear was a caution. Captain and all had never heard anything like it before or since.

We got to St. Louis in about eight days. We stayed about a day there as no boat for Keokuk was going to leave for two or three days, except a boat with freight and cattle. Our folks did not want to unload our goods and pay storage for it, so concluded to go on that boat as it was only a few hours trip to Keokuk so we embarked on (the) boat at night and arrived about three or three-thirty next morning. As there were no teams to be had at that time in the morning we got something to eat and stayed until daylight, which was in a short time as it was May and light before five o'clock.

We then moved our baggage up to camp (Mormon outfitting site for the overland trip to Utah) about a mile from town. Keokuk at that time was a small town or village it would be called in England. It was pleasant, situated on the banks of the Mississippi on the Iowa side.

The town consisted of a few stores, grocery and general merchandise stores, butcher shop or two, Post Office and several saloons, and some nice dwellings. When we got to camp we found a very large camp about a mile long. Two rows of camps, one on each side of the road, situated in an unsettled land with considerable timber and open range where the campers turned the stock to feed. There was plenty of wood for fuel free for the gathering. And the camp was pleasantly situated on a high hill or there was a hill to go down to the river. The place where the camp was level. We could see the boats going up and down the river. We had to carry water from the river. There was a clear spring close to the under bank of the river. We got our water and one had to nearly step into the water of the river to get to the spring and I used to get dizzy looking at the water. It looked so big and rolled so. We used to bring our washing to the river and 10

make a fire and do the washing there. The people in camp were mostly English, Americans, Germans, Scotch Scandinavians. The Danes were a strange sort of people.

They wore hats like Chinamen (the women did) and wooden shoes, blue stockings or red, and short dresses made of wool and mostly red or blue.

The people in camp were waiting to get their outfit to go on. Their destination was Salt Lake. They had to buy cattle, wagons, provisions and some were pretty well off for money, but most of them were too poor to buy a team all of their own. So, they put their money together, perhaps two families in one wagon with two yoke of cattle (oxen) or three if they could. Some came in what was called the ten-pound company. They calculate to make ten pounds carry them through. Of course they came the cheapest way there was.

A man named Shurtlieff (Shurtliff), an American who had been to England on a mission and came back the same year we came, was engaged to buy the stock cattle.

There was also another man engaged to buy the wagons for the company. We bought them from a wholesale manufacturer at wholesale rates. Our wagons were there when we got to camp. The covers and tents were bought in Liverpool and made on the ship while crossing the ocean. But the cattle did not come for some time after and were quite wild.

One cow we were obliged to lasso and tie up as she had been taken from her calf that had run with her. She had never been milked and we had quite a time training her. We stayed there for about a month before we got everything ready to start.

The companies traveled about fifty wagons in a company with four to six oxen to a wagon. Our folks were one of the independent companies. That is people who had enough money to fir out their own teams. Our folks bought a good supply of provisions, groceries, and with an extra allowance in case of longer delay or accidents that were not looked for. Some had horses and buggies but our folks had not bought any not being told we should need any. Father wanted to get a pair of horses as he thought we should need them on getting to the end of our journey. But, he found it almost impossible to get a good rig in that place. Buggies were not so common nor so cheap then as now. A two seated covered spring wagon was what we needed that could be used to sleep in. But he would have to go to Chicago or St. Louis and our company was going to start soon, so he could not go. But he bought a nice trotting mare from a man that came to camp and trusted he might be able to get another and a double buggy or wagon before long.

Arthurs and Kings and one or two others got theirs in St. Louis.

CHAPTER THREE​ ​OVERLAND to the​ ​GREAT SALT LAKE VALLEY

Well we started, but I don't remember the date of the month. It was in May. We had to travel over some very muddy roads. It rained a good deal and thunder storms the worst I ever saw. The rain just ran through the tents and wagon covers sometimes. But we made the best of it we could. We put up the tent, put our stove in it and cooked there when it was too wet to build a campfire. We passed over some of the finest land and forests I ever saw, until I went to California. Father who was always fond of good timber land had half a notion to stay and settle there. We had two large wagons to our family with two yokes of cattle, but we found the load too much for that amount of cattle.

Father purchased two more yoke of oxen on the road and also another horse. We came past a farm and saw a man plowing and we bought one yoke from him (two oxen.) The man 11

unhitched them out of his team to sell them and also the horse.

On another occasion a man was plowing with horses and sold one to father out of his team. We came through a very rough road some of the way. The road lay through the woods and the road was cut through the timber and brush and there were lots of stumps in the road. We came down a steep hill through a woody country after we bought the new oxen and camped on a stream on a flat place where there was lots of grass. In some places the grass was waist high and a fine country unsettled except a log house or a small lumber one at interval of from ten to twenty miles apart. Father was almost tempted to stay and settle there in some of the places. With his family he said he could take up a large tract of land for his son-in-laws, daughters, and himself to go farming. But he was prevailed upon to go on, so we resumed our journey west. We traveled about 300 to 350 miles by land from Keokuk to Kanesville (Now Council Bluffs, Iowa.) That is not far from the Missouri River. We camped at Kanesville with our provisions, or part of them, having bought the groceries and other provisions at Keokuk.[NOTE: The company traveled from Keokuk, in the extreme southeast corner of Iowa on the Mississippi River across the breadth of Iowa to Kanesville (Council Bluffs) on the west border of Iowa near the Missouri River.]

There were about fourteen persons in our teams to start with from Keokuk, but my two aunts, Catherine (Preece), mother's sister and sister in law Hannah Preece (Widow of James) and her boy John, stayed at Kanesville having met some old Nauvoo Mormons who told them the Mormons would marry them for plural wives. They would go no farther.

Two sailors, father was bringing with him, who joined the Church on board the ship also got tired of the land trip and returned back.

After getting all our supplies the company resumed the journey. We crossed the Missouri (River) 4 July 1853, after a week of hard travel through fording and rafting slews (Slough: A bog or marsh generally part of an inlet or backwater of a river) and water from the overflow of the Missouri River. The raft that was made of logs to carry our wagons over the slews broke to pieces when one of our wagons was on it. The wagon went to the bottom in about 4 or 5 feet of water and wet and spoiled lots of our goods, clothing, etc. We got them all out with the help of some of the company, but was hindered about two days as we had to build a new raft before we could get our wagons over. We had already had to ferry our raft, our teams and our wagons over three or four slews or over the overflows from the Missouri River. But at last we got to the ferry at the Missouri River that was to take us across. We camped there one night. It took us over a day to get all the wagons over and cost one dollar each for the wagons. They made the cattle swim across the stream. It was strong and rapid and it was all the cattle could do to swim. Some floated a mile or two downstream before they landed, but we got them across all right.

The place we landed was known as Winter Quarters because the Mormons who were driven out of Nauvoo in winter camped there all winter. It is said they cultivated the land there the next spring and raised a crop before going on to Salt Lake. Some of them went on in the spring (1847), but most of them stayed until the next year. The place is, I think, where Omaha (Nebraska) is now built. Well, we camped there one night then started on our long journey west.

There were many ups and downs, trails, and difficulties to encounter, but we overcame them all such as breaking wagon tongues, (wheel) spokes, tires to set (steel 12

rims on wheels), etc. I can't recount all the small annoyances and troubles we had, such as lame cattle, stray cattle, etc., but we got on without much indifference when one broke a tongue or lost cattle they all stayed until he was ready as we were coming toward the Indian country and it was not safe for us to scatter as there was more safety and self protection in keeping together. After a week or two we got out of the timber country so there was no timber only in a small fringe on the banks of streams. And soon we had to gather sticks and carry them along to cook our meals when we got to camp or else we were like to have none. Then we had to use buffalo chips to cook with. That was a new experience, but we found them good fuel when dry.

One day about 12 days or two weeks after crossing the Missouri (About 18 Jul 1953) we met the first band of Indians we had ever seen. Of course most of the women were scared for we had heard so much of the cruelties of the Indians. They were a band old Sonex (Sioux) and were considered a bloodthirsty set. They were moving camp and had their squaws and papooses with them but we had no trouble. They seemed friendly and came and shook hands with us and begin to beg everything from tobacco, whiskey, and cracjers to coffee and blankets. We gave them a lot of provisions, tobacco, coffee, etc., and then went on. They had numerous ponies and carried their lodge poles tied to each side of their ponies.

The next incident I remember was some immigrants for California ahead of us killed a buffalo and just went on and left about half of it a short distance from camp, also the hide of a large fine one. Well, my sister Selena who was a girl of about eleven or twelve years old and my father drove on ahead to camp at noon. We found the buffalo meat still warm. We thought we would have some steaks for dinner. We stopped, unhitched our horses; we had the horse and buggy, and made a fire, cut some meat off and by that time the camp came up. They also got some meat and started to cook it. It was the first (buffalo meat) we had ever seen.

After dinner the camp moved on, but father wanted that buffalo skin to dress and make a robe, but never had seen one. While the camp went on we drove up to where the skin was, about a quarter mile from camp. Father told me to get out and also sister while he put the skin in the buggy. It was not like the buggies that we have now days, but was intended for two seats also to put a bed in while camping. So he left the horses stand and tried to put it in behind. But he never did it, one of the horses was a blooded race horse, high spirited and easily scared. She took one look and sniff at the hide and dashed off full speed. Father grabbed the lines, but missed them. He got hold of one side of the bridle, but after holding on for a hundred yards or more was knocked down and hurt.

The horses and wagon went over him.

He got up, however, and as the horses had gone around in a circle, one horse was slower and could not keep up, it brought them around in a circle and he caught them again, but could not hold them as he was hurt too bad. I ran to his assistance and unhitched them quick. I told my sister to hold the shirrey one and the other was not scared. While I got some water to wet my father's face as he had fallen down and was groaning badly.

I also was scared and did all I could.

In the meanwhile the horse my sister was holding pulled away from her and with the harness ran off as fast as she could run. The other horse I tied to the wagon wheel there being no tree nor bush near. In the meantime the camp had gone on quite a distance. There was no one to help.

13

Finally my brother-in-law Wheeler saw there was something wrong and left his team to his wife and came back. The horse had run quite a way by this time. He mounted the other and rode after the runaway, but he may as well have whistled for no horse in camp could keep up with her if starting together let alone being nearly a mile behind. The harness scared her and she took the back track about ten or twelve miles without gaining on her he lost sight of her and came back, for it was getting night and not safe for a lone person in Indian country. So, we never got her again.

A company of horse teams overtook us a few days after and we asked if they had seen anything of a runaway horse. They said the night after the runaway they heard a horse run through camp about midnight. Some of them tried to stop it, but could not.

They heard the harness rattle so we knew it must be our horse. She doubtless ran until she dropped dead.

In the meanwhile someone brought a yoke of oxen back to fetch the buggy, I think it was Joseph Gough, my other brother-in-law. Father was badly hurt as he sat up he spit up blood for sometime after. He had to lie in bed most of the way and did not get well enough to work until after he moved out to Cottonwood. Well, we caught up with the camp after a while, but was creoled for want of a team to draw the buggy.

It fell to my lot to drive it. They put on a yoke of cattle from one of the other teams.

The country was level plains mostly. We were getting near the Platte River. Father lay in the buggy on a bed and was rather cross as the road was rough. It jarred him and hurt, but I could not help it. I had to follow the rest. We traveled day after day on a prairie as level as any country ever was as far as the eye could see. Without a tree or bush to break the monotony of the scene, only Platte River. There were large herds of buffalo with sometimes an antelope and deer. There were few experienced deer or buffalo hunters along with us and we did not get near enough to get any for a long time.

One night after we came in camp, it was quite early, there was a small band of buffalo not far off and one of the men took a rifle and went toward them. They were making for camp and we were afraid they (the buffalo) would stampede the cattle. Some of the men tried to stop them. We had plenty of fresh meat for a few days. We had to cook it with buffalo chips. We went on and on without any incidents until we came to the sand hills where the sand was so heavy our travel was slow. In a few days we would be through them. There was little feed along there.

One day we camped for noon or dinner and turned out the cattle to feed awhile, but a terrible hailstorm came up with hailstones larger than quail eggs, and how it did beat and blow. It drove the cattle off about five or six miles before it. It was quite a while before they were found. As we went over sand hills and rough places and finally on to the plains again we neared Fort Laramie without anything unusual, such as gathering buffalo chips, cooking our meals, milking cows.

We generally set the nights milk in the tent on the table, for we brought a table we could fold up and fasten beside the wagon. In the morning we skimmed the milk, put it and the morning milk away, tied it up in jars and at night the cream was generally butter.

So we had butter without churning.

When we got to within twelve or fifteen miles of Laramie we camped one night rather late between the Platte (River) and a high bluff. There were other hills in a bunch, but the one I speak of was large and near the river only a few rods, perhaps fifteen or twenty rods (about 250 feet) from the river. We camped and kindled fires to 14

cook, but had not got supper before a lot of Indians came on the hill and commenced shooting arrows into camp. It was dark and about between eight and nine o'clock in the evening. Of course we were scared, but our captain who had some experiences told us to put out the fires; let women and children go in the wagons and keep quiet and corral the cattle. We always made a corral of our wagons and all the men armed themselves and stood guard. They did not fire on the Indians else it would be a signal for a massacre for all our company. Well, the men watched all night, but after firing a few times at the camp and some of the arrows stuck in the wagon covers they left and next morning we moved camp.

Our next stopping place was Fort Laramie (Wyoming) where after crossing the Platte we went about a mile and camped there. We decided to stay a week to rest the teams, set tires, watch, etc. As that was about the end of the level country and feed was getting poorer as we neared the Black Hills. It gave our cattle a good rest and feed. The Indians came to camp often to beg, but being near the fort did not try to bother us again. We then moved on, but some of them tried to buy a white woman; tried to trade a pony for one and also offered a pony for a jug of liquor, but we would not trade. On (we) went until we struck the upper crossing of the Platte, which was quite deep in this place.

As we were not among the hills poor and barren with sand hills in places which made it hard for the teams and the oxen, (they) were getting poor as food was scarce. One day one of the oxen gave out, lay down and died in a little while. He had doubtless drank alkaline water as others had died of the same. We had to get along as we could without him thankful we had lost no more.

I must mention that when we got to Fort Laramie there was an old trapper or Indian hunter who had a young horse to sell and we wanted one to go with the other in the buggy. Father, who was some better bought him. We put it at once in the team and I drove him all the way to Utah. After the first day or two we got to Sweetwater, a stream we crossed quite a number of times. There was a band of Indians, a whole tribe camped on the Sweetwater. In going through a flat or valley of about forty or fifty acres surrounded by perpendicular cliffs, the Indians commenced firing on us from the cliffs. Some arrows stuck in the covers of the wagons. One or two hit the oxen, but we did not return the fire knowing we could not hit the Indians high up in the rocks and bushes. We soon passed that dangerous place and got out in the level country again and passed the Indian camp.

We got to Devil's Gate, a place where the Sweetwater run between two perpendicular cliffs. We also passed Independence Rock where some wrote their names.

I forgot to say we passed Chimney Rock on the Platte, a loose rock out in the level plains and like an immense chimney.

One night the wolves that howled every night came into camp and killed two cattle.

They killed several before this crippling their owners for cattle. Some had to put cows in the team. One woman lost three out of four of her cattle and had to put her cow and oxen in and get along as best she could.

One day I was behind driving the horse team and one of the tires came off. I was quite a distance behind the others. I got it on as best I could, working it on with a hammer. Father could not help much, but I managed to get within hearing of the camp and get help to camp. It was one long tiresome journey, but we made it as pleasant as possible. Some folks used to get together at some campfire and sing, tell stories, and 15

chat thereby making the time pass as well as we could. But there were some hateful folks who tried to be disagreeable.

We came to Green River at last. It was quite high and my cousin Bill Preece, who was driving one of our teams, in trying to roll up his pants so they would not get wet, had to stand on the tongue of the wagon to drive across. His team started to follow the one ahead before he could roll up his pants; so he came near going down the river in trying to catch them and get on the wagon. He had been sick and was very weak, but someone helped him to get on his wagon. I came next with four or five girls in the buggy and the water came up into the bed of the buggy and the traces which were old fashioned came unhitched. As one of the (men) did I had to go out on the tongue to find it and fasten it (The traces are the straps or chains that connect the harness to the single or double tree of the wagon) while the girls screamed as the rig swayed with the water, but we got over all right at least with wet feet and skirts.

I can't get to write in this book often as I can't think of events when anyone around is talking. We camped a night or two from on Green River. There was not much of interest happened, only the everyday events. Mountains to climb, rivers to cross, sometimes someone had an ox give out then they would put a cow in his place if they happened to have one. One woman lost all her oxen but one. The wolves had eaten some, some had died from drinking alkali water or gave out. Some of the company would either take some of her goods to carry or help her up the bad places. Many folks who were good natured at home were cross and selfish when traveling so long a distance with ox teams.

But on the whole we got along first rate for no one was allowed to go on and leave a family behind that needed help. Sometimes we came across wild grapes, which were rather scarce in that country. Then we gathered them and although small and sour were quite a treat. Sometimes we found wild gooseberries among the rocks then we made a pie or stewed them, for some vegetables and fruit was a luxury. On and on we toiled.

We came to Sweet Water, so called it is said because some upset a load of sugar in the stream. We crossed it a number of times (Sweetwater River starts at the Continental Divide in Sublett County, Wyoming and runs easterly through southern Fremont County and joins the North Platte River in Natrona County of Wyoming), passed an Indian camp of Crow Indians who did not molest us only as usual came to beg. We were daily nearing the Rocky Mountains. Then we came to South Pass (At the headwaters of the Sweetwater River, crossing the Great divide into the Green River drainage down Sandy Creek), the highest place in North America. After a day or two we got to the top.

Then the stream runs the other way. Before, all streams ran east or northeast. Now they ran south or west. But after we got into the Great Basin of Utah all the waters either sank into the desert or ran into some of the lakes. Finally we got to the Wasatch Mountains (Crossing into Utah in the neighborhood of Evanston, Wyoming.)

Now the weather was getting quite cold especially at nights and one night it snowed four or five inches. All the wood we could get handy was willows and of course they did not make a very hot fire, but we only had a few days more to travel before we got to our journey's end. But, I am before my story. Before we got to the place (where) it snowed we came to Fort Bridger (in the southwest corner of Wyoming on the Muddy Creek drainage) a place occupied by U.S. soldiers and we came there and stayed a few days to rest and recruit our teams before going out over the mountains. The roads for two or three hundred miles had been very rough and rugged and feed for the teams was poor 16

and scarce.

After resting we went on, but one team could not keep up with the rest as they had lost one yoke of oxen, having died or gave out. So some who had good teams took some of their loads and left them to come along at their leisure, knowing them to be safe as long as the Fort was so near. They got to their journey's end a few days after we did. We got to Salt Lake City about the twentieth of September 1853 (From the Journal History of the Church, 19 August 1853, pages 2-7; two trains were outfitted in Keokuk, Iowa in May of 1883 and Captain Jesse W. Crosby's company #3 of 79 people and 12 wagons arrived G.S.L. valley about 10 September 1853; and Captain Moses Clawson's company #4 of 295 Saints and 56 wagons arrived Salt Lake about 15 September 1853. Since the story does not indicated a very big train, perhaps Captain Crosby's train was the one written about), and we were all glad we had got to our journey's end.

CHAPTER FOUR UTAH AT LAST

My father was not over his hurt and Mother was anxious to get him into a home believing with rest and more comfort than he could get in camp would be better. But she still feared he may not get well. He intended to get a farm as soon as he could, but not being able to attend to it. He soon had a chance to buy a house and lot in Salt Lake City where we moved. Father soon began to get better and after some weeks he was well enough to go out, and hearing of a farm for sale on the Little Cottonwood, he went and bought it.

Now father and mother had put away some money when they left England intending to keep it in case of emergency. Father had made all our boxes for traveling himself out of some trees that grew on our old home farm in England. He cut the trees and sawed the boards himself with the help of his brother out of some large old elms so he could put them into the wagons so they could fit well. He made a secret drawer in the bottom of one to put the money in he wanted to save until he got to the end of his journey. Well, the money came in handy to buy his farm. Money was scarce in Utah then and a man would sell nearly anything for money. If he had been a Yankee he might have traded some oxen and wagon for it but in England folks expect to sell and buy for cash. He had not got accustomed to the ways of the place. He moved to Cottonwood as soon as possible. Father decided to go there so he could start plowing. He could not do much yet, but my cousin, Will Preece, was with us and he was going to put him to plow. He had to buy everything we ate and we could not get much in the grocery line for it was all bought up as soon as a store of goods came overland. It had to be hauled by freight and came in slow and the goods were soon sold so if one was not on hand to buy within a few days most of the desirable goods were sold. Tea, sugar, coffee, was very high and tobacco. Some old men could not get along without their tobacco and it sold from one to two dollars per plug. Besides the grasshoppers, I believe, had destroyed a good part of the crops and made everything scarce and high (priced.) Father bought some potatoes, corn, hay, or straw to feed the stock, flour, etc. There were quite a lot of poor people who came there that the grasshoppers had taken the crops. At any rate it made it hard for the farmers and others. But we got along all right and gave some food to others worse in need of it.

We went to live in a log house, one and a half stories high, one bedroom and a large 17

living room. Father's family, some of them had married off and had gone off to live by themselves. Among them my sister Anne, who married Thomas Wheeler, bought a house and lot in Salt Lake City and went there to live. Sarah (Walker) and her husband (Joseph Henry Gough) went to Cedar City, Iron County, to live where an uncle of her husband lived named William Gough. Eliza (Walker) also married after she came to Utah to a shoemaker named (Thomas P.) Smith who lived and worked in Salt Lake City.

So only my sister Selena, myself (Mariah) and brother John Walker were left at home. My cousin (William Preece) and John used to sleep in the large or sitting room, Selina and I in the bedroom and it was a very cold winter and our room was also cold, but we had plenty of bed clothes and a feather bed. Mother had brought two or three along.

But there was a good fireplace in the house and the walls of the large room were plastered. It was quite a comfortable house for a log house, but still cold. We had no coal in those days, nor hardwood or logs to put on the fire, so we had to burn willows, cottonwood, brush, and sapaline (saplings.) It was mostly green and made and made a poor fire. But we were better off for fire than thousands of others who had to burn sagebrush. We had the wood on our own place. There are but few places in this valley where firewood grows, only on the Little Cottonwood, and that ran through our farm.

Father bought the farm from a man named Bankhead, a southerner who used to own Negroes when he joined the Mormons and came to Utah he brought some of his Negroes with him. He had some eight or nine when he came to live on the place and among them a girl and her two children. She used to live in a smaller log house a few yards from the other house. My sister and I and my cousin used to go there sometimes, in the evening and she used to roast corn on the ear and bake squash in a bake oven and give us some.

Bankhead and his Negroes stayed there awhile after we moved into the house because he had not found a place to go yet. They moved into another log cabin. He did not treat his Negroes very kind and Miraham (The young black mother) used to tell us how he used to whip her if she did not do anything the way he wanted it done. He could not keep his slaves unless they wanted to stay and some of them left to look out for themselves. Bankhead had lots of cattle and he had to look out for a range for them before they could move away.

Well, spring came at last (1854) after a cold winter, colder than I had ever been used to. So we were glad to see spring again. Soon after my brother-in-law, Joseph Gough, came back from Cedar City (Southwest Utah, settled 1851, iron ore deposits) on a visit and wanted mother to let me go down there to stay awhile with Sarah. She was homesick and was becoming a mother and wanted one of her own folks to stay with her.

Mother needed me as all the others had gone and left her without help except sister Salena and me, and she was only twelve years old. But mother let me go like mothers will, sacrifice her own convenience to help one of her own children. It was decided we were to go with Mr. Arthur’s family who had been sent there by the church authorities.

C​HAPTER FIVE CEDAR CITY and MARRIAGE

Mr. Arthur had some shares in the then undeveloped iron and coalmines. He once lived and sold merchandise to the men who worked in the ironworks of Monmouthshire, England. I think he also owned some shares there. But at any rate he kept a store and made considerable money trading and selling goods to the iron-workers. He got away with 18

all his money before long and died poor. He was willing to take us to Cedar City with him.

There were not any other conveyances in those days and a person wanting to go anywhere had to travel with his own team if he had one and if not go as best he could. The distance there (Salt Lake City to Cedar City) I think is about 270 miles. There were about ten persons in his family including myself, Joseph, a family of three persons from the town he lived in, and his own family of four and a Swedish sailor he brought across the plains.

We started in March. The weather was fine, but cold at nights. The Arthur's had crossed the sea and plains in the same company with us, as being the independent company, our folks who had means for paying their own way and buying their own teams.

A great many of the immigrants to Utah those days came in what was called the ten- pound companies. That is they had to make ten pounds pay their expenses through and came by the perpetual immigration fund. That is the people had paid into the fund money that that was used to bring out all the poor Saints who could not raise money to bring themselves out. Afterwards they were expected to pay it back as soon as they could and it went to bring others out.

Mary, Ann, Arthur, and I being of age the same, we used to be great chums, so we had a pleasant journey together considering the hardships of traveling with ox teams over a new and rough road. There were some good singers in the company and we used to sing at nights by campfire.

We were about two weeks on the journey (about 20 miles per day.) I don't remember any incidents remarkable, except the usual ones of camp life, getting wood, water, cooking, hunting for stray cattle, that was the men's work. We cooked, washed dishes, packed up utensils, dishes, etc.

When we got to Cedar City, I found my sister had a baby girl nearly two weeks old.

She was living in a small adobe house of one room and like many others without much furniture, a bedstead made of poles or rough lumber, a table of pine boards, one or two chairs, a few dishes, tin plates, two or three china cups and saucers mother had given her, skillets she borrowed. There was not enough for every family to have one. A few had stoves of the old-fashioned step stove, that is the back part of the stove was raised a step higher than the front and was poor makeshifts to cook on. But we should have been glad to have had one even if it was not as good as the stoves of today.

The seasons were quite backward, but Joseph started to put in a garden. He had taken up a garden spot, one of the garden lots laid out, but had no team to plow it. He had to borrow or exchange work. That was the way lots of folks did when they first came. They took up a lot of five or ten acres. They had large fields divided up into five or ten or twenty acres divided by ditches. Those who had teams exchanged work with those without. Thereby all could raise something to eat.

Clothes were not so easy to get. Some had sheep and spun and wove homemade clothes. Some brought enough with them to last a few years. But it was a hard scratch for all. After a while, I don't remember how long, we moved back to Parowan, the next town (Northeast of Cedar City) about eighteen or twenty miles distant.

I forgot to say while we were in Cedar City we were next-door neighbors to John D. Lee and family. He had two wives that lived close to us, and about four others a little further off. He also had one on a farm in a place called Harmony, where he lived part of the time. We often borrowed their skillet to bake. We did not have meat, butter, groceries, fresh vegetables, at that time as we had to wait until they grew. When we got 19

to Parowan it was about August. I think Joseph got work and worked for wheat, potatoes, etc. I used to sleep in a trundle bed that was run under the other by daytime and pulled out by night.

When we got to Parowan, Joe rented a log house from a man named Stuart. It was the worst place for bedbugs I ever saw. Joe plastered the wall, that kept some in, but the roof was full of them. There used to parties quite often both at Cedar City and Parowan. That was the chief amusement and the young folks never tired of dancing.

I had several beaus, but never cared for any one but one. I never gave them encouragement. It was at Parowan I first met William Burston, you may ask why I did not go back home. Well, there was no conveyance, only the few folks who took their teams and went back on business or to conference and they were generally full or loaded. But we managed to enjoy ourselves pretty well; sometimes at a quilting, sometimes a berrying, or some gathering. There were no big bugs (VIP), none better than his neighbor.

I was not long acquainted with William Burston before he wanted me to marry him and be his wife and I finally consented. He said he could keep a wife as well as any one, but that is not saying much when we consider the drawbacks. Sarah was poor and although I was welcome they had no more than they needed nor as much. William had only a log house, but others were the same or at least lots were. Most of them lived in adobe houses, small but warm. Our furniture was a pine bedstead, a straw bed, two blankets, a thin old quilt, a pine table, a stool, two old chairs, a fry pan, a tin camp kettle, a coffee pot. He bought some dishes off a man going to California so we got along for dishes, but I had no skillet and had to borrow one every time I wanted to bake. There was one or two others who had to borrow the same skillet and often I could not get it when I needed it the most.

I remember when my sister came to see me. She had moved to Cedar City after we left. I had to run several houses to borrow a skillet to bake bread for our dinner. We had no tea, sugar, milk, or butter. I think we had some hog meat. We made a meal of bread, potatoes, squash, and pork. But lots of times after that I could not get half as good a meal.

The next spring William was called with some others to go to Las Vegas to make a new settlement. Las Vegas was then in New Mexico (Territory), that and Arizona being all in one territory then.

We started about the first of May. There was about thirty in the company. They were to take up land and build a fort to protect themselves from the Indians. They built their houses inside of the fort. When he left home he left a man to take care of the crops he had put in. He was to have half the crops for taking care of them. I don't remember how many acres were planted, but I think, ten or twelve in all. Some to wheat, some corn, potatoes, squash. He took a year’s provisions with him, that is potatoes, flour, and bacon. I think he took 400 pounds of flour also garden seeds, wheat, etc. They intended putting in a crop the first year and by working all together could fence a large piece of ground enough to raise all they needed to eat. The first day they got 80 to 100 acres fenced.

The first summer they divided it in lots by ditches. They made ditches from the creek to bring the water on the land, make adobes, and built the fort wall and some houses the first year.

But in the meantime how did it fare at home? He left me some flour and one ham 20

of bacon and some potatoes, thinking when harvest there would be plenty, but the grasshoppers came and ate almost everything. That was the beginning of my trouble. I had always been home with mother and father and never knew want or trouble. I was now for the first time left to myself and my own resources, which were few before harvest.

Sometime my meat and flour gave out. I had nothing to buy with, nothing to trade for food, but someone gave me some cornmeal. There were a few onions in the garden. The garden lots were inside the fort wall and the hoppers did not quite destroy all. The walls were about twelve feet high and made of mud so it kept some of the hoppers out, but a lot got in. At harvest time all the wheat and corn was gone and the potatoes badly injured, but I got about seven bushels. Some of them (potatoes) very small, and a few squash. I had two small pigs or shoats (a young pig between 100 and 180 pounds). William left me some bran to feed them, but it did not last long and I had nothing to feed them only young sunflowers that I gathered and boiled for them. I used also to gather pig weeds, and cook and eat myself (´Amaranthaceae family - esp. ´Amaranthus palmeri sometimes called pig weed, careless weed or redroot.) Also other weeds, black mustard (Mustard family - ´Cruciferae ´Brassica nigra - principal source of table mustard), etc.

But those were not plentiful and others had to eat them also. There were a few that had saved some wheat or corn from the year before, but they were few. One man had quite a lot, but would only sell it for cash or stock. Something I did not have nor only few others. I was almost out of wood to burn, but I got along for wood as long as the weather was fine. I gathered sagebrush, went down creek gathered dry willows, which were both scarce and small, also dry cow chips.

When my first baby was born I was in a poor fix for I had scarcely anything in the house to eat. My sister Sarah who was living in the same place was as poor as I. Her husband had not raised any crop, but she got some bread and I think a little tea, but I don't know how she got it. She stayed with me for a few days, all she could. She had two small children of her own. There was a nurse woman I got to come to be with me, but she went home soon after the baby was born. I think she dressed the baby once. I was healthy and strong then else I could not have got along. We had to make all sorts of shifts. I had no soap to wash the baby, only sister Sarah had some a small piece she brought from England. She left us have it to wash the baby the first time, but had to take it home as she had no other and needed to wash her own baby. I had made home- made soft soap, but it was only fit to wash clothes with. In addition to having no fine soap, I had neither meat, butter, cheese, syrup, sugar, tea, coffee, bread, only the potatoes and squash the man raised. Some folks would have taken it hard, but I made the best of it I could knowing no one was to blame. But I got over it all right and got up in three or four days and did my work.

It was not long after that I had a chance to sell one of my pigs for I think one and a half bushels of wheat. As I had not much to feed with I sold it and had the wheat ground into flour. I then took the small potatoes, some of the squash and bran and fed the other hog. I had quite a time keeping it in the pen. It did not have enough to eat and used to jump out. I afterwards got some boards and built up the pen so high it could not get out. I fed it all I had to feed before I had it killed. It was small when killed, but made some meat. I used to go down the creek during the summer to pick currents.

There were quite a lot of bushes, but not many currents as perhaps the frost had killed them. I had to go a mile or two before I came to the current bushes, but never got more 21

than I could eat.

Then as winter approached, James Louis, who lived near brought me a small load of cedar wood from the canyons where there was plenty only about three to five miles off.

William had brought his wife two or three loads while he was on a mission. Well, in the latter part of November, William came home to see how I was. He was going back in the spring and take me. This was in 1855 at Parowan (Utah Territory.) I had not much to eat, some flour from the wheat. I had ground but very little. He killed the pig and salted it.

It did not weigh over ninety pounds, but it was quite a help and a treat also as it had been quite a while since I had tasted meat or butter. He brought some corn on the ear with him from Las Vegas, perhaps a bushel more or less before it was shelled. It was some he had raised that first summer. We got that ground into meal which was not much after it was ground, but seeing not much show to get any more he thought we had better go up to Salt Lake and stay with my folks for the winter.

It was now December and he thought he could get anything to do in Parowan to earn something to eat. I objected to going in the dead of winter with a young baby and a very scant supply of victuals (food) and other things, clothes and bedding. We only had one pair each of shoes and those were made out of the tops of old boots and had wooden soles made by a shoemaker of the place, and a scant lot of stockings. We were not the only ones in that fix for most of the folks were short of necessities. But William would go. He always had his own way besides a woman who did not obey her husband, never was thought much of nor sympathized with. I had not much experience with the world or I would not have gone. I wanted to stay until spring.

CHAPTER SIX WINTER of 1855 - BACK TO GREAT SALT LAKE VALLEY

Well, we started. I don't remember the day of the month, but think it was about the middle of December 1855. There was no other team and we had one yoke of oxen and a wagon with a cover on. We borrowed a small sheet iron stove to put in the wagon as we had no cooking or baking utensils only a tin camp kettle holding about six quarts and a fry pan. The stove was such a folks used in the market place to warm coffee or warm a small room and had one hole and a small oven, which did not bake well. But such as it was I had to get along with it. We had to gather sagebrush to burn. Sometimes we passed a cedar grove got a few dry sticks or a few willows or cow chips, which were generally too wet in winter to burn. It was bitter cold and there was about six or seven inches of snow on the ground and myself and the baby had to lay down and cover ourselves with the bedding to keep from freezing. We used to heat a rock or something and put to my feet and William knew I was nearly frozen for he had no overcoat. Then there was danger of Indians who if they saw a single wagon would be likely to kill and rob us or drive off the oxen. But as luck would have it we never saw any.

The wolves more than once followed us when we were near to where Beaver City is now (about 40 miles north of Parowan.) There was no house, nor settlement between Parowan and Juab, a distance of about 140 0r 150 miles. When we were near Beaver Creek going on our road three or four large wolves followed us for two or three miles and ran along side the wagon. I tell you I was Scared. We had an old musket with us, but very little ammunition, only a few loads. William was afraid to shoot for fear if he should wound one without killing it they would all jump on us, 22

or the oxen. There was no help within thirty or thirty-five miles. At last he shot the gun to scare them and finding they ran off a way he shot again and they left.

At another time they came, but not so near. But we could hear them howl every night and were afraid they would come at night and kill the cattle then we should have been in a bad fix, but soon after the mail wagon from California caught up with us. We then had company until we got among the settlements. The mail went through for the states (The United States, this was still the territories) once a month. That was before the Pony Express was started. We traveled with them or camped with them until we got within a few miles of Fillmore. (Not yet half way to Salt Lake City.) As they had horses they went ahead and left us coming on. About eight or nine miles south of Fillmore we came to a place called Corn Creek. It was nearly dark and commenced to snow and blow. We had nothing to feed the cattle nor had we scarcely anything at all only a few ears of corn. When we started the cattle had shift as well as they could by eating willows or sage by brushing the snow off with their nose or feet to get the grass. Well, we decided to camp here.

The mail was ahead of us and we could not catch them that night. There was not anything to make a fire with only a few small and green willows and some sagebrush that was wet. We had much difficulty in starting a fire, but got one started at last. We made some wheat or corn coffee. I have forgotten which, but we could not cook much because the stove smoked and the wind blew. I thought it would blow the wagon off its wheels. We had a piece of corn bread and it was frozen.

After warming it we ate our supper. Of course it was not enough for two, but we had got used to going without enough to eat. The worst was the baby. I did not have enough milk to nurse her when I did not have enough to eat. We crept under the bedclothes, but could not sleep warm. We put the baby between us to keep her warm. When we got up in the morning there was about thirteen or fourteen inches of snow. We tried again to kindle a fire, but had much trouble to get one started. We had kept a few dry twigs in the wagon. After frying a few corn cakes, for baking was out of the question without better wood, the sheet iron stove did not bake well anyway, we started. We did not start very early and the snow had drifted in banks and filled up the road. It was difficult to find it in that level country. There was no tree or rock nor any landmark by which to be guided.

We only knew we had to go north. There were mountains in the East and West, but at some distance. However we kept on as well as we could through the snow and sagebrush. Sometimes we got into a ravine, but they were not very deep as a rule. At last we could see the town or fort for all the first settlements were built like with walls around to keep out the Indians. It was nearly night when we got there.

I forgot to say that Fillmore (Capital of the Utah Territorial government 1851-1856) came before Juab or Salt Creek as it was then called. William went the bishop to see if he knew any place we could put our oxen where they could get something to eat for they were nearly gave out. He let us put them to his straw stack. I think we ate supper there. I have forgotten the bishop's name. The morning the pail of water in the wagon was frozen solid, but that had happened several times. Sometimes we had to melt snow to drink. I think the bishop let us have a few ears of corn to feed the oxen on the road. He also gave us a little corn 23

meal to make bread with. We started again the next day and went a few miles to a small fort with a few families living there, not over three or four families. I think there we overtook the mail wagon which had been obliged to stop on account of the storm and also because one of the two men who carried the mail had got his feet badly frozen and was obliged to stay. The other went on with the mail the next day. We stayed there that night then went on, but I don't remember seeing the mail again. Our progress was slow on account of the snow and the poor condition of the oxen, but after several days we got to Juab. It was nearly dark when we got there.

William found a man named Edward Williams we used to be acquainted with in Parowan. He used to live there, but moved to Juab. He got married to a grass widow woman with six children. She had left her husband for some reason, perhaps because he got another wife. But, he seemed satisfied with his bargain. She seemed a nice clean woman. She had several cows, a team, a cottage in town and seemed comfortable considering the hard times. They put in our team and fed them and we took supper with them of potatoes, corn bread and pork. Quite a treat after the fare we had been having. It was very cold. They invited us to stay and bring in our bed and make it up by the fire. They had a fireplace and a good fire. The house had three or four rooms in it, but like most homes those days the sitting room was the kitchen and dining room. However, we knew we were welcome and spent a comfortable night.

The next day was so cold and windy they persuaded us to stay that day and next night. As the oxen were well provided for we stayed. When we started the day after we only went a short distance, not over a mile, when we found it so bitter cold William turned back declaring he would freeze if he went on. So we stayed another day and night.

He was an Englishman and so was his wife English. When we started again, Margaret, the oldest girl wanted to go with us to visit her father who lived in Springfield (Springville) about forty or fifty miles on our road so we could do no less than let her go. She was seventeen or eighteen years old. Of course it would be some inconvience to us, as we have to be one or two nights on the road and only having bedding enough for one bed. But there was no other conveyance for her to go until the weather got finer.

After going about seven or eight miles we came to hard ground with a corral made of a mud wall and a dugout or cellar where the herder lived. But before we got there I was taken with a cramp in my stomach from eating frozen corn bread and I thought I should die. We had to stop there to try and get something to relieve the pain. There was a woman there, her husband was one of the herders, but she had nothing only some black pepper on hand. She made some pepper tea and gave me and it helped me. It was now getting late in the afternoon and as there was no good place to camp for nine or ten miles we decided to stay at the herder's camp all night.

The cellar was warm and we had a good fire and fireplace. They invited us to stay and put our bed on the floor in front of the fire. We were glad of the chance.

The two men slept together in one bunk while the woman let Margaret sleep with her. We slept with our clothes on. There was a log on the fire, which burned 24

nearly all night. The next day we resumed our journey. It was still very cold. We camped that night near a cabin where an old man lived. There was not any feed for the cattle but what they could pick. I think William had got a few ears of corn from Ned Williams. We made some coffee of grain and had some corn bread.

William went in with the man to sleep and the girl and I, and the baby slept in the wagon, or tried to, for I was too cold to sleep and lay awake waiting for morning.

Next day on again. We got to the girl's fathers at night fall. When we got within about a block of her father's there was a lot of ice in the road. It covered the whole street so we could not get past it. Some ditch or something had run over the street and frozen so the oxen could not stand. They both slipped and fell.

William could not get them up until someone came to help him.

We then went to Margaret's father's house in Springfield. The oxen were put in his yard with his cattle and fed. When I went into his house I saw what a contrast between his wife and Margaret's mother who was a clean and industrious woman and this one was dirty, lazy, and evidently ignorant. She had a dirty house, dirty herself, the baby's napkins scattered all over the room. She only had two children and could have kept them clean. I don't know whether his first wife left him before or after he married the second. She was not clean about her cooking and I believe we ate our own food for William said he could not fancy eating after her. Perhaps he was suited. I don't remember his name.

The next day we started out again. We wanted to get to Pleasant Grove if possible. It was about sixteen miles there and it took us all day to get there. But we got there about dusk. There was a man named William Finch living there that I was acquainted with in the old country. He came across the sea with us and crossed the plains. My father let him have about twenty pounds to pay his passage and help him bring his folks out. He had a wife and two small boys, but I believe he never paid father back, I am sure he never did. He was poor for a long time, but I don't believe he tried to pay it. Father would have taken grain, produce, or work but there were others that loved money too who said they would pay it back when they got to their journey's end. Father was too quiet and trusted people's word because he would have paid any debts he promised. He thought others would.

Well Finch had a home in the town, a small town. Then he had some hay, he fed his cow and put our oxen in and fed them. We also had supper and breakfast there. Of course they were like the rest of the people, short of provisions, but some had potatoes and corn bread. His wife was a very nice woman. We had been very lucky about getting places.

We were now about 30 or 35 miles from mother's house, but we thought it all we could do to get there in two days. I think we got to the warm springs that night and I don't remember whether we got feed for the oxen or not as we slept in the wagon. A man named Powell kept a herd of sheep and some cattle lived there.

It was very bleak and cold there. We started next day and reached mothers about three or four o'clock in the afternoon and I was glad to get home once more.

Mother was surprised to see us as well. She may, as there was no way for us to come, only by team. She thought William was at Las Vegas. Father was away from home at the time. After putting the cattle in and feeding them it was nearly suppertime. Father came soon after. He was also surprised. Of course they were 25

glad to see us, but they were not very well pleased that I had gotten married before coming back home. Their provisions were also short as it was by utmost exertion they had saved any from the grasshoppers.

Mother, sister, father and brother all took branches of trees or brush and drove them onto a piece of meadow or grassland where they had spread straw and at night at night when the hoppers were quiet, set fire to the straw and that destroyed millions of them. They saved some wheat enough to sow the next spring; it was about one third of their corn, potatoes and some squash. They also had some hogs so we got along pretty well by going short on allowance.

But hundreds of folks were not so lucky and a great deal of want and privations prevailed. Mother gave food to many and traded some for goods. Sister Selena who worked hard to save the crops she let her sell some for a calf or two that gave her a start of stock when she got married and also a pony. They used to cook the squash and after putting in spices, etc. used it for butter and spreading on dough to make rolly puddings.

It was about the tenth or twelfth of January (1856) when we got to Cottonwood and we concluded to stay until spring before we returned to Las Vegas.

There was nothing William could do to earn anything. Our folks were not in need of help and could not afford to hire if they wanted, as they had nothing to pay with having scarcely enough produce to keep them until harvest with seeds to sow. The plowing and sowing of wheat was done. We stayed there until I think the latter part of March when we heard there was a company forming to go with us. The folks let us have corn meal and potatoes enough to last until we got through but they could not well spare them. We had to wait about a month before the company was ready.

CHAPTER SEVEN DESTINATION LAS VEGA​S

We bid the folks goodbye and started. I never felt how much mother was to me until I was forever to separate. For a girl doesn't think when she gets married how many trials she will have to pass through nor how much her mother has done for her until she has left home. William was very cross as a rule finding fault with me always. I was over proud and sensitive, to proud to complain. So my folks never knew what I had to put up with so I bore my unhappiness in silence. If I was sick he never had sympathy for me saying I could shake it off if I wanted to and it was not natural for a young person to be sick. Therefore if I was sick I never complained. But I compared him to mother who always did all she could for any of us if we were not well. I generally had good health, but my mind was sick and that helped me to feel worse.

We went to Provo alone thinking to wait there for the company and William was acquainted there with a man who came back from Vegas when he (William) did and intended going back. His father lived in Provo and was pretty well fixed for land and cattle. William got a week or two work from him and took his pay in produce, corn, beef, cornmeal, potatoes, etc. A small allowance but still a great help as we would have to raise a crop before we could get anything to eat except what we had with us or could get there. It was pretty hard to buy provisions then.

We then went on to Spanish Fork, another small settlement, where we heard the 26

company was to meet, but we waited a week or ten days before they all came up. There was two or three families came and while waiting for the rest they dammed up the creek and caught a lot of fish which was quite a treat and help to our scanty fare. We salted some of the fish. It was mostly suckers, rather a coarse and inferior fish and we got awful tired of it before we got all eaten. We could not go to the store or to the market and buy luxuries then and had to eat what we could.

At last the company all came and we resumed our journey. It was 500 miles from Salt Lake City to Las Vegas. It would take us over a month as we dared not drive too fast for fear of the teams giving out, as there was nothing to feed them with only what they could get at night when we camped. There were about twelve wagons in all. A few had been there before. The grass was getting good for it was late in April (1856.) As some wanted to raise a crop or garden the first year we wanted to get through as soon as possible. We made no more delay than necessary. It takes about two weeks with an oxen (team) to go from Salt Lake to Iron County, but we were about sixty or sixty-five miles on our road from Salt Lake City. Nothing of any interest happened on the road to Iron County, only the usual annoyances of cattle straying or getting lame or some other hindrances.

We soon got to Parowan, our old home, in ten or twelve days. William of course wanted to take me with him to the new place, but he did not want to leave all his property in Parowan for nothing. He had only a log house, a corral, and a town lot, about 20 acres of land in the big field. Folks did not live on their land then on account of Indians. They always lived in settlements and built a wall around it. Well he could not sell his place so we went on. The company was impatient of delay. It was 300 miles to Las Vegas from Parowan and desert most of the way. It would take two weeks at best to get there so we did not stop to hunt a purchaser. Everyone in the place knew us and knew we wanted to sell out, but the trouble was no one had anything to buy with.

Our next day’s journey took us to Cedar City. There Sister Eliza and her family lived.

They had moved up there the spring we first moved to Parowan. We stayed with them all night then went on. I did not expect to see any of my folks again for a long time.

After going about two days we came to the Mountain Meadows. A place for the massacre that took place afterwards in which it was said John D. Lee was the leader.

That happened two years later. I think it is on the old immigrant road to Southern California. Just before we got there a man named Riley who was one of the company had one of his cows have a calf. It was too young to travel and he said we could have half of the milk if we could carry the calf. We were too glad of the chance to get some milk for we seldom could get any. Our load was light and family small while he had a heavy load and a big family including two wives.

We camped and I think stayed over a day to rest the teams before going on the desolate country before us. As there was long drives before we came to any place where there was any feed or water to camp the next time we moved. It was only a few miles to the rim of the basin between Utah and New Mexico (Territory.) At that time New Mexico took in what has since been made into Arizona. After we crossed the rim we commenced to go down all the way, but we could tell the difference in the atmosphere like going into California from Nevada. We went through groves of timber but not like the large timbers of California. The trees were small and stunted. We camped on the Santa Clara Creek (Southwest corner of Utah - runs into the Virgin River about 5 miles 27

southwest of St. George.) It was called but only a creek. I should call it and not much water it at that. We had passed all the pine and cedar timber and now it was cottonwood, willows, etc. on the sides of the creek, but not much feed for the stock that I could see.

Our journey took us over a desert about 30 miles.

In the meantime (the) Riley’s kept the new milk from the cow for several times and substituted skim which they warmed so as to fool us. William did not detect the difference, but I did and told him. He told Riley he would not carry the calf any further if we did not get the new milk. We did for awhile, then they managed to carry it or get someone else to. The milk was quite a help to our poor fare. I guess they also needed it, but they had several other cows while we had none.

The journey was a hard one on the teams and folks. One got so tired after a long drive over a desert waste. At last after crossing several short deserts we came to the Rio Virgin River which we followed for about forty or fifty miles, crossing it eighteen or nineteen times. (The Rio Virgin starts northeast of Zion National Park flows south and southwest through the southern part of Zion, on past Saint George, Utah, cutting the nextreme northwest corner of Arizona, on into Nevada where it turns south and dumps into Lake Mead. The last forty or so miles of the Virgin River sinks into a finger of the Colorado River gorge.) We women and girls used to go in the water to bathe everyday at noon or nearly so. We had an old dress we put on to bathe in. The weather was intensely hot and we felt refreshed after a bath.

The feed for stock was pretty good on the river there being lots of reeds and cane the cattle ate. The river ran between two high banks that looked like a big freshet (A sudden overflowing of a stream because of melting snow or heavy rain) had cut its way through. The banks were perpendicular and about seventy or eighty feet high. At last we came to where we had to leave the river.

The road went up a steep place, a bank up the side of the wash that formed the sides of the chasm that the river ran in. It was over a half mile to the top and we had to put two teams on each wagon to haul it up. Sometimes three if the wagon was extra heavy. It took all day to get all the wagons up.

We camped on top to rest the teams before going on. It was a desolate place without grass, water, or wood. There were weeds called desert woods that grew on all the deserts. We carried water with us so we made some coffee of corn or something and I think we had some corn bread, but not much else. We had traded with the Indians for some dried berries that grew in a place near the Santa Clara Creek. They were red and resembled red currents some were very sweet, so much that they made one thirsty to eat they, but when dried tasted very much like store currants. At night in camp I used to make a pudding with them and cook it for supper if we got into camp early. But we had no eggs, sugar, sourmilk, nor baking powder, and the saleratus was poor, being such as had been gathered in its crude state without being refined (Saleratus is aerated salt. Sodium or sometimes Potassium carbonate, used in cooking, baking soda.) You can guess I could not make a nice light pudding nor could I have nice bread. It was well for us we were young and had good appetites, which we always had. We stopped here a few hours to rest a little and eat supper. It being considered best to go on about two or three o'clock in the morning so we could reach a camp ground where there was grass and water the next evening, for we had another stretch of desert to cross.

We were tired when we started and it seemed an endless journey over a barren 28

waste with nothing in sight but a few stunted weeds and some bare hills in the distance.

We had our bed put on a frame to fit the wagon and laced in with rawhide. It was a very good substitute for a spring mattress. We put our few articles underneath. We also had a barrel holding about twenty gallons. We were obliged to carry water for the cattle else we never could have gotten them through. Well, as time hung on our hands traveling I used to take the baby and lie down on the bed to sleep some of the way. Once could not get yarn to knit or threat to crochet, and books were scarce as few brought them along nor could I get any patches to make patch work else I never should have been idle. I have often since then, when I was overburdened with work, wished I could have got some of my idle time back to help me, but there were many others like me.

I found most of my time taken up when I got a house for one had to make all sorts of shifts to get along that one should not have had to if we had been where we could get things when we wanted them. At about sunset we got to the Big Muddy at last. That is a river that sinks in the desert. There was not much grass here as campers always stop here before crossing the big sixty-five miles of desert. But there were some weeds and willows on its bank the cattle could eat. We decided to stop here a few days to recruit up the oxen (strengthen) before crossing the big desert, as it would take from thirty six to forty hours to cross it. The women washed and made bread ready to take along.

That night the Indians came and acted very saucy and hostile. They shot at the cattle and at the camp. They tried to run off the stock. We were on the alert and there were men set to herd them. These Indians are the Paiutes, a low degraded set and part of the same tribe or of the same band that are called the California Diggers, but are not as civilized as the California Indians, and are a cowardly set. They wanted to beg, but thought as we were only a small company they could scare us and drive off the cattle but they did not have many guns and used bow and arrows. Finding we had guns and men not afraid they were willing to come to terms. They had no horses like the Indians on the plains so were at a disadvantage as our men could soon run them down. But we thought prudence the better part of valor, preferring to feed rather than fight so our interpreters asked them what they wanted telling them we were friends and only wanted to travel on. They said that the white people had got their country and were always going through it and killing the game. They wanted something in pay for it. They were told we were poor ourselves but would give them something to eat. They were quite a large band, a hundred or more. They said, give us an ox or ox and we will let you pass in peace.

The company had no cattle to spare. There were only a few cows and one or two loose stock except what was needed to draw the wagons. We only had one yoke but one of the company had a steer or cow he could spare so they let the Indians have it and they went off a short distance and killed and ate it all up before morning. Some of them ate so much that they were sick and groaned so we could hear them all night. To cure them some would jump on the stomachs of the sick ones and stomp.

We stayed a few days then filled our barrels and water vessels with water to carry across the desert for the cattle to drink else we never would have got them across. We started at night, as it was very hot, dry, and sandy. We should have two nights and a day or two days and a night on the big sixty-five mile desert. We should have neither grass nor water for that distance. We traveled until noon next day without halting. Then the captain of the company called a halt to rest the teams. He said not to give them any water until we were ready to start else the smell of the water may cause a stampede but 29

the oxen was too tired to want to run off or at least William thought so, so he gave our oxen a pail each of water when we stopped. Some of them were nearly given out.

The captain whose name was Coburn, a big swaggering American, a tyrannical fellow, knocked William down for not obeying orders. They quarreled some about it. Our next move was to water the stock before going on. We had but a limited amount of water but it had refreshed the cattle with the hours rest. We went on not stopping again until we got to our journey's end.

Here I must say when William crossed the desert the year before one of the oxen gave out within four or five miles of the journey's end and he had to go to water to fetch some on his back for the oxen, before he could get him along. The next day about nine or ten o'clock we reached the Las Vegas tired and worn out teams and people. We found they had built a small fort and some houses (the Old Las Vegas Fort was in the southeast corner of where Las Vegas Blvd. South and Washington Avenue intersect today, north of Interstate 95.)

We had a house of one room without a roof on it. It was built of adobes but they had to twenty-five or thirty miles to get timber for rafters and had to saw them up with an old fashioned rip saw worked by two men. The work was slow but the houses had joists for upstairs so they put covers of anything they could get over the top to keep out the hot sun.

The fort was in a valley between two deserts and a small creek run by it from which they got out the water to irrigate their crops. The creek head came from a large pond of extinct volcano. There were three or four of them (Volcanic craters) about four miles west of where the forest was. The water was beautiful, cold, and clear. The creek was very narrow and anyone would think there was not much water in it but it was deep and swift and the edges projected over the creek. The grass on the edge kept it from breaking off into the creek so that there was not over from twelve or fourteen inches wide at the top and nearly two feet deep. The water was thus kept from getting warm.

There were about eleven families in the fort besides single men, and men who had left their families at home. About twenty-eight to thirty men and boys large enough to use a gun in case of an Indian Attack and about eighteen women and girls. Three of the men had two wives each. We used to put the cattle together and put a man to herd them thereby saving a lot of trouble for each man; for hunting for his cattle and especially his cows, as the herder brought all the stock home to the corral each night.

There was a large corral build for the accommodation of all as all the men helped build it. It was made of a mud wall about four or five feet high and a good wooden door or gate of boards so as to keep the cattle safe in case of Indians trying to run them off.

It happened once or twice that the Apache Indians tried to run off the cattle, horses and mules. But it seems as if they (The stock) knew what the Indians wanted and as soon as the Indians appeared the horses and mules ran for the fort as fast as they could and ran into the corral. The herder who had seen an Indian or two lurking around started the cattle that became alarmed and ran for the fort. The Apache country was across the Colorado River only about twenty-five miles distant so we were likely at any time to have a raid from them. We were fortunate in not being molested much.

The men who went to Las Vegas, among them which was my husband (William Burston), had fenced about seventy or eighty acres the first summer and put in crops, made ditches to bring water on it and subdivided it into lots so each person could get a 30

lot or two. The lots were divided by ditches and consisted of garden lots of about half an acre (About 100 feet by 200 feet) and field lots of five each (A little over 1000 feet square.) The fence was made of mesquite, a scrub tree that grows there in small quantities where the creek sinks. It is very thorny and hard. It makes fine firewood. It bears a bean for fruit, the bean being used by the Indians for food after it is ground up.

It also makes good hog and cattle feed. The climate is very hot in the summer being something like Southern California in the summer. But there is always a breeze, either hot or cold, and it is very cool at nights. The pasture was limited to a strip of ground near the creek and where the creek sinks there was considerable grass, but only enough for one big or medium dairy.

There was no way to get our grain ground into meal when I first went there, only by a hand mill that held about a gallon. Each used it in turn and it was a hard job for a woman. I took my turn, but after it was ground up we could not separate the hulls from the ground corn nor bran from the flour. There was one sieve I think in camp. As I did not like to borrow, I got along without. Besides the old lady who had it was Irish, cross and queer.

We had no cow for sometime after. But William Foster, a man who was a partner in helping William to build the house, they helped each other, had a cow that gave a small quantity of milk. He told me if I would milk the cow I could have half the milk. He was not used to cows and had spoiled his cow by being a poor milker. So I took the job for the sake of the milk. I found that she gave only less than a quart but after awhile the cow began to increase her milk until she gave two gallons a day. She had fallen off because Foster did not milk her clean (Stripping) and only used one hand. I then made some butter, which was a great treat for we had but little since I first left home to go to Iron County before I was married. Luxuries were few. We thought common necessities luxuries.

We raised a small garden that summer also some corn on another lot but the armyworms ate lots of it up. The men and some of the women worked at picking them off and therefore saved a good deal but still the crop was short. The vegetables turned out better. We had good mellow tomatoes and squash. I used to take baby and go down in the lot to get vegetables. The lot was nearly one-fourth mile off. We had to cook in a fireplace and two families at one fire.

One day a squaw came into the garden while I was getting beans and other things.

I had put the baby down on the ground to set while I got the vegetables. She took the baby up to play with her then said she would like to trade babies. Then when I was ready to go home she said she would carry the baby for me. She used to come to the house often and the baby used to go to her and pat her naked skin, the squaw laughing at it. So, I let her pack the baby but before I was ready and not noticing her, she started off walking fast. She had gone some distance before I saw her, then being afraid she would steal the child I ran after her but could not catch her until I got to the fort where she took the baby home to our house and was waiting for me.

The camp of Indians was only a short distance beyond and I thought she had taken her there. The Digger Indians or a part of the band camped near the fort all the time.

They lived there and were friendly but incessant beggars but there were willing to work for small pay. Some of the women of the fort used to hire them to wash. They would work and do a big washing for a squash, a pan of potatoes, or an old shirt. They were very 31

dirty and lousey and I was afraid the baby would get some on her for they came to the house everyday and always wanted to hold the baby and were mad if I refused. We wanted to be friendly with them as they could do us lots of mischief if they were so inclined. I could talk considerable Indian then but have forgotten it all now.

At last one of the company thought he would put up a gristmill. He had brought a pair of millstones with him. His name was Thompson and came from Spanish Fork (Utah - 10 miles south of Provo, settled in 1850.) There was no timber fit to build with within twenty or thirty miles and not much there. He got some help of others and rigged up his mill so it would grind. There was no building over it, only a wagon cover stretched over posts. He turned some of the water out of the creek into a small sluice (A channel or trough sloped to carry water, usually wooden) and got to work it. It ground all right but he had no dressing mill so as to take the bran out. But it was better than a hand mill so we got some meal ground.

William was not satisfied here and it was not likely to be enough provisions to supply all the camp until harvest so he decided to go back to Salt Lake. He did not like old Coburn and some of the others. As there was a young man we were acquainted with in Parowan, one of the camps, we sold our property in Parowan to him for a yoke of two-year-old steers. John Lowder was the man who brought us out and he intended going back there. Then we sold our rights in Las Vegas to a man who came there with us for a cower two year old heifer, and a two-year-old mustang pony. But the pony had never been broken and William traded it to another man for a cow. She was a nice black four-year-old so we got the best bargain. William generally got the best of the bargain.

CHAPTER EIGHT LITTLE COTTONWOOD

Well, we started north with three other wagons. I don't remember much about the journey. Nothing of interest occurred worth speaking of only the usual routine of camp life. When we got within a few miles of the Santa Clara Creek we stopped at noon to rest one day. While the team was feeding I went off a distance from camp and found some very nice berries. They were as large as cranberries but quite sweet and pleasant to eat.

I gathered quite a lot, some two gallons I think. They were quite a treat. I have never seen any berries like them either before or since. They may have been upland cranberries but were sweeter than cranberries. We cooked and ate some and put the rest into an old jar and brought them on to Cedar City for Eliza. We were three or four days drive from there. We got there at last.

They were surprised to see us. We stayed there all night and went on to Parowan the next day but found sister Sarah and Joseph Gough had moved north to the new settlement being made at Beaver some thirty miles on our road. We could not make it in a day so camped at night.

We got to beaver at five o'clock and sister Sarah came out to the road to see us.

I wanted to stop all night with her as her husband had gone up to Salt Lake to be gone perhaps a month and she had two small children and the one boy was very sick. She had no one to do anything for her like the rest of us and was very poor and had nothing in the house for a sick child.

There was only some five or six other houses or cabins in the place at that time and Sarah was near her confinement although her younger was only fifteen months old 32

and she never had to make shifts (changes of clothing) such as she now had to. I thought it would be some comfort to her to have me stay all night and render such assistance I could but William never liked her and not hear of our staying. He even went on and took the baby along while I stood a few minutes talking to my sister. He said if I wanted to stay he would go on and take the baby. Well of course I had to go on then and leave my sister in distress. That was the last time I ever saw poor Sarah.

We went about two or three miles and camped as the others had gone on there.

We could have easily caught up with them in the morning but starting a little earlier.

Sarah's boy died. I don't remember how long he lived after we left, perhaps a week or two, but it was hard to get letters then that I have forgotten how long he lived after we saw her.

It took us about two weeks to go from there to Cottonwood (Salt Lake City area) to where our folks lived for that was where we wanted to stop. It was near the end of September, about the twenty-fifth when we got to our journey's end. We stayed at mothers until we could get a home of our own. Father tried to get a place for us to stop and have for a home so as to be near the old folks. After a while we heard of a small place on the Little Cottonwood Creek about a mile up the creek from Union Fort as it was then called. William went to see the man and made a bargain for the place for a yoke of steers.

The place was about sixteen or seventeen acres and had considerable wood on it, that is green cottonwood, and willows but it had no house on it. Father had some adobes and he said we could have enough to build a small house. We hauled them, that is William took his team and father let brother John take his team and hauled the dobies to the place we intended to build the house. Father furnished the lumber. He happened to have some on hand, window frames, sashes, and he had glass he brought along. Folks had to make or hire their sashes and doors made. Father helped put up the house. It was a small two-roomed house with fireplace for everyone had a fireplace in those days. Few had stoves and those who did had to put up with the old step stoves one would not have in these days.

We moved in before the coldest weather set in but our furniture was scant. We had in trade for our house in Parowan three wooden chairs; one small rocker and we had made a raise of a bake skillet. I don't remember how we got it but think we traded something for it. We made a pole bedstead and put rawhide out of the bed frame we brought in the wagon to lace into the bedstead and filled the tick with straw (straw mattress). Our china was a set of English China, which was traded for from a family going to California.

So we had plenty of dishes except plates. The china was a tea set for two for bread and cake and no plates. We were very short of clothes. I had two calico dresses for the baby and one I think good and an old flannel skirt. Shoes she never had. Dad and I managed to get enough yarn to knit her some socks, and mother bought her the first shoes she ever had and a calico dress. She also bought or traded for enough linsey (a course cloth made of linen and wool, or cotton and wool) to make me a dress for winter.

I forgot to say the five-year-old heifer (A cow that has never had a calf) we traded for at Las Vegas was up at Lehi near Salt Lake in Utah Valley. The man we traded for her from had left it there. We had an order for her but she had a calf now the man who had her would not let us have it. The heifer gave milk and that was a great help to us. We brought the same cow with us when we went to California. Our other cow we left 33

at fathers as he had plenty of straw to feed them and we had none. He gave us straw and hay enough to feed the cow all winter. The oxen stayed with father's stock. We raised a crop the next year.

Eliza and Thomas came back from Cedar City that fall and having no home to go to we let them live with us for the winter. In the spring father gave them about ten or fifteen acres of his farm if they would come and live on it and farm it. Father helped him build a small two-roomed house on it. Father I think furnished the adobes, lumber, and glass for windows as in ours. Thomas was no farmer and after a year or two moved to the city where he got work at his trade.

The second year after we went on Cottonwood, Johnston's Army came. We heard of them long before they came near and the boasts they had made of driving the Mormons out of their homes. That was in the fall so Brigham Young had no idea of being driven out and left to starve in the dead of winter so he called a lot of men to go out in Echo Canyon (1857) and guard the pass so the soldiers could not come in. The canyon is a narrow pass between two mountains and a lot of men, Mormons rolled rocks down to fill up the pass so that teams could not pass, then set men to guard it.

Among the men that went, William Burton was one. He volunteered to go although his family was in poor condition to be left. I had a young baby only about between two and three weeks old and we scarcely had anything to eat. Although we raised one crop there was scarcely any flour in the house and we were five or six miles from a mill and I had two small children and no neighbor closer than a mile distant. He was poorly fixed for as we all were. He had no overcoat nor boots nor socks. I had only one pair of stockings, a woolen pair I had knit. So I let him take them and went without.

I was without wood to burn and it came a deep snow. I had to hitch up the oxen and go to the brush to get some. I left the babies in the house while I went. There were willows cut down but they were not much good for warming the house. I brought a load but I also found some stumps of willows grubbed out and brought then, as they would make a better fire. That was a hard time for me with my two children. I also had to hunt the cow through the snow.

Someone told the Bishop or the captain of the company William was with, how I was situated and they discharged him from duty and he came home. They said there were plenty of young men to do the work without taking a man from his family unless he was situated so as to be able to go.

One day while William was gone to the mill to get some wheat ground there came to the house a big Ute Indian. He began to beg as is their custom but I told him I had nothing to eat in the house. He was saucy and said I lied and went to hunting all through the house in flour chest, cupboard, etc. to see if he could find anything he wanted but not finding anything he went to the door and shot arrows at our cow. I was scared for he was very bold and I was afraid he would kill the children and me. I could understand a good deal of what he said. I expected to see the cow killed but I know enough of Indians to know he would be meaner and more apt to kill us if I showed any fear. So I stood still and never hollered knowing no one could hear me and the Indian camp was not over a half mile off. I told the Indian if he came tomorrow I would then have some bread as my husband was gone to fetch some flour. After shooting at the cow as long as he wanted to he finally left. Of course I know he could have killed the cow with the first arrow if he wanted to. He only wanted to scare me. William did not come home until dark. The 34

Indians often after that came to beg and I always gave them food, as that is the best way with them to win their friendship.

That winter Thomas Walker got married to a widow, an English woman. He was about forty-six or forty-seven years old, she was forty-eight or fifty. They had no home so we let them live with us that winter.

The next spring the army came in and the settlers moved out thinking there would be war or that the soldiers would kill the people. (Saturday 26 June 1858, Col Johnston's Army passed through Great Salt Lake City, subsequently marching about 40 miles north of the city and establishing Camp Floyd.) Our folks went to Beaver to stay until all was peace at home. We went to Springfield (Springville 5 miles south of Provo.) for the summer but came back in the fall. The rest of the people went to other places, Provo, Spanish Fork, Salt Creek, Pleasant Grove, etc. All the inhabitants of the Great Salt Lake Valley moved out. The Mormons had guarded Echo Canyon all winter to keep out the soldiers but Brigham Young sent word to them in the spring that if they would come in peacefully and not molest the people he would let them come in. Still the people distrusted them and that is why they moved out.

While we were at Springfield we camped by the fort wall. It was made of mud and was not finished but was five to six feet high. We made our fireplace to cook our food close to the wall. We excavated a place out of the wall large enough for our fireplace as the wind often blew strong. We could keep the fire in from blowing away better than in an open place.

One day our nearest neighbor's boy, a lad of thirteen or fourteen years, came running in from the herd ground where he had been helping some other boys herd the cattle and told his mother he had been bitten by a rattlesnake. His mother was badly scared and some of the neighbors came to see if they could be of any help. We all did all we could to help. None of us had any remedies at hand but a person who had some experience told them to put his hand that was bitten into a heap of soft mud and keep it there for several days or until the poison was all out and they did. Sure enough in about a week the boy was all right. Some recommended liquor to make him drunk but I don't think he took anything.

We stayed in this place for about three or four months and while someone shot and killed our best ox. We think it was Indians for we found several sticking in the flesh and a part of the meat was gone but some folks said if Indians had killed it they would have taken it all and I think so too. Anyway he was our last ox and we would have to hire or borrow a team to take us back home. I forgot to say that the other ox had died the winter before. He was badly used up on going on his first trip to Las Vegas in crossing the desert and had not gotten over it. We also lost our first cow the same winter. We had left her at fathers to winter with his stock. Being short of hay she went into the brush by the creek and got into a mud hole. They came and told us as soon as they found her and helped get her out but she was too far gone and died soon after. It looked like fate was against us.

We moved back to Union Ward in July. That is to the house on Cottonwood Creek.

That summer there was a demand for men to make adobes at Cedar Valley where the soldier's camp was for they wanted to build a fort and offered good pay for laborers.

William with a lot of others went there to make adobes. The children and I were left alone in that lonesome place. Although I am not a coward I felt rather timid and 35

lonesome especially after my experience with that Indian the year before. But I was resolved to make the best of it. We had only one cow now and she would not stop around home for lack of company. She took to going with cows from Union Fort and a boy there used to drive her home and his folks milked her although they had six or seven cows of their own. The father used to take theirs and also all he could buy to the camp of the soldiers where he got one dollar a pound for it. I sold what I could spare to him for forty cents a pound and was glad to get that.

The man's name was Van Volkingburge (Van Valkenburgh) and he had two wives.

They lived a Union Fort as it was then called and it gave me lots of trouble to get my cow every night, as I had to take both children with me, the one a small baby and the other less than three years old. Cash was a scarce article then and the only way I could get any was by selling the butter from one small heifer and I only had a few chickens. Mother had given me some six hens and a rooster to start with but as we had to move out in the spring I had not raised any. I made a few dollars. I think I got twenty-five or thirty cents for the eggs. With the money I bought the children and myself some clothes. Not much for everything was high and the goods were poor. My children had never had shoes.

Only mother bought a pair of kid ones for Ellen, but they were gone for one day, while I was busy and not noticing her, she threw them into the fire. They were all spoiled before I saw them. William got money from his work at the camp but he needed clothes and as the soldiers were selling off lots of the oxen that brought their goods across the plains and was selling them cheap, some for less than half value, he bought a yoke of cattle as our old ones were both dead. We raised some potatoes and wheat and had one hog, not a large one, but we made some butter from our cow. Besides what I sold I think I made about three or four pounds a week.

I think Thomas Smith went out to Camp Floyd (Location of Johnston's Army, about 40 miles north of Salt Lake City.) That is the name of the camp where the soldiers were.

At any rate he got a yoke of oxen cheap. William stayed out there over three months then the weather got too cold to make adobes as the mud froze.

There is one thing I forgot to tell in its right place. While I was at the Springfield (Springville, 40-45 miles south of Salt Lake City) camping one evening, William had gone somewhere as usual, the children had gone to bed and I was sitting on the wagon tongue doing nothing. It was twilight and as I gazed up into the sky looking at the stars, it was a clear night, I saw away up in the sky two swords crossed each other and beneath the figure 1861. It was the color of gold of a flaming fire. It was visible for several minutes then disappeared. That told me that there would be war and the date. (12 April 1861, Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter.) But to go on with the rest of my story, William came home. He did not bring much money along and we bought a few most needed things for himself and the rest. He also bought some groceries. He is fond of tea and coffee and other good things. I was in favor of going without groceries and buying more clothes but he always had his own way.

There was not much amusement in those days except a dance now and then. The people for the most part belonged to the laboring class, were poor and industrious, but there were more dances in the Southern part of the territory than in the Cottonwoods.

Then at Las Vegas the folks used to dance in the square formed in the middle of the fort, on the ground, but the fiddlers were but poor musicians. They gave their time taking turns in playing and dancing. The folks had no fancy ball dresses but wore what they had.

36

It may be calico or linsey. Some of the old country folks brought gowns or silk along especially those of the better class of people which were not over one tenth or one fifteenth part of the people. Those who did not have nice dresses sometimes wanted to borrow from those who had them. Some would lend their dresses but most of them did not like to for fear they could not get others when they wore out. I knew one or two instances some backwoods girls who were rather lonely and green borrowing fine things from some rather stylish English folks to wear at a party. The folks who borrowed spoiled some of the things they had borrowed. The folks who loaned them said they never would loan anything again. But such is the world. I have found that many people don't care if they break or destroy anything they borrow without making recompense for it. Borrowers in general are poor shiftless folks.

We stayed on Little Cottonwood all that winter of '57 and '58. In the spring of '59, William who had been talking with Thomas Smith and consulting him as he often did as he met Smith in the States before he came to Utah, and had decided to go to California in the spring. (At this time Utah is still a territory; therefore, the Union is referred to as the States.)

I passed many lonesome hours with my children in that little house on the Cottonwood. William never wanted to take me along if he could help it although he often went into the neighbor's houses. He was not fond of children and did not want to be bothered with them. I could not go alone without help. We sometimes went to church in the ox wagon and to Mather's to spend Christmas. Once or twice, Eliza, Tom, William, and the children went to the fair in Salt Lake City.

I think it was the fall he worked at Camp Floyd. He got an old pair of horses from a neighbor and our covered wagon and went. It rained all the way. The fair was held in a large hall still standing. I believe it was the first fair ever held in Utah. I think at least the first I knew of. It was rather a poor affair, but considering all the circumstances it was the best they could do. The first sewing machine I had ever seen was in the fair. It was one of the old fashioned chain stitch ones like the stitches the flour sack are sewn with. It was a Howe machine. It had since been greatly improved. We bought some apples while in the city, poor ones but the first we had seen since we came to Utah. They were raised in or near Salt Lake.

Time waits for no one and spring soon came. I did not want to go to California for I did not want to leave my parents nor did they want me to go. I realized if I went so far I should never see them again, and I never did. I had also been told California was a very wicked state. Some Mormons called it hell.

When spring came there were lots to do before we could start. First we should have to sell our place, then our teams, and get our wagons fixed up. It was old and we had no money to get a blacksmith to fix it. It needed new fellows in it, also other repairs to make it fit for the journey. Father undertook to fix it. He was always handy with tools, but had never done much blacksmithing. He got some wood, the best he could, for hard wood is not to be had at that time. I think he got cedar or mountain mahogany and made a set of new fellows and fixed up the wagon good. We sold our home for a cow, that was all he could get but he took the first offer he got. We had given a yoke of cattle for it and built a house and shed and put some fence on it but the fence was poor all around so it used to keep me running people's stock off the crops.

Eliza (Smith) was living in the city and we decided for both families to go together 37

in one wagon. They had one yoke of cattle and we had one so it was just enough for a team. They had a tent or a large wagon cover that would do for a tent so we decided to start in May (1859.) Sister Sarah had not then moved down to Cottonwood so I could not bid her Adieu. Ann (Walker) and Thomas Wheeler had just bought a farm on Cottonwood or traded their house and lot in the city for it, so all my folks were near but Sarah. Her husband had come up that spring to see about getting a place to live. I believe he was thinking of moving down soon. So far we had everything ready our means would afford for the journey and that was a scant supply for so long a journey, we missed our only year old heifer and had to stay two or three days longer to hunt her. John Walker went out also to hunt for her but failed to find her. We told him if he found her he could keep her but he never found her and I always believe that the boy who used to drive up my cow to milk had driven her off where we could not find her. She ran all the time around where we lived.

But no good came to that family. Most of them failed to get along and prosper.

The old man met a violent death. He was killed by Indians a year or two after we bade farewell to the folks.

The worst I hated to leave was my dear mother and no doubt she felt worse than any of the others. We were to go to Salt Lake City and stay a day or two until Eliza (Walker) and Tom (Smith) were ready. Mother said she would come down again before we went away and see us all again as she had not bid Eliza goodbye. When we got to the city we had to wait longer than we expected for them to get ready. Mother came and stayed as long as she could and took dinner with Eliza and us. She started late in the afternoon to go home. She had the old fashioned buggy we brought across the plains with us. It not old fashioned then. We bade her farewell and I thought my heart would break. She said I shall never see you again. I never did. She died the following fall. (Anne Preece Walker, died 25 November 1859) I watched my mother out of sight. It is said to be a sign one will never see the person watched again and I never did. She died in 1859.

Father lived twenty years after and married twice for his second wife died in childbirth. She had two boys by father. After awhile he married again, a middle-aged widow with several children. He is buried beside her while mother in Salt Lake Cemetery with only one of her children beside her. I have often wondered why they did not bury him beside my mother. Folk think it was his second (third) wife's doings. She survived him several years. She was a Herford (Hereford, England) woman and was his second (third) wife.

CHAPTER NINE CALIFORNIA HERE WE COME

We started at last. I have forgotten the day of the month, but it was somewhere between the tenth and fifteenth of May 1859. There were several other teams going to California from Utah. Some were from Cottonwood, but they had either gone on or were behind. We expected to meet them someplace before we got far. I believe it was agreed where but I don't remember now. We left the city late in the afternoon and camped that night on North Willow Creek. We caught up with some of our company in a day or two.

There were six wagons besides ours. There were some loose cattle to drive as everyone had one or more cows to drive. Some had a few loose steers or young stock and the men and boys who did not have to drive the teams took turns to drive the stock.

38

After several days travel and after we left Ogden one of our cows, the one we got in trade for our last home, became lame so she could not keep up with the rest of the stock. After a day or two we had a chance to trade her off for a two-year-old heifer.

The cow was a large one and quite nice but she did not give much milk as she had been milking some time. Of course she was worth more than the heifer, but it was the best we could do under the circumstances. I think we were having a streak of bad luck, which seemed to commence after we got to Cottonwood and has follows us more or less ever since. I refer to losing stock and other property; otherwise I have been quite fortunate in many ways.

After traveling several days we came to Bear River where we camped a day or two.

We had to ferry over Bear River. Soon after we caught up with another company of immigrants going to California. There were eight or nine wagons of them and they had a lot of cattle they were taking to California. I should think they had from 200 to 250 head, calves and all. There were quite a number of young calves and they traveled very slowly and they were a long time in the morning gathering them all up, for they would not go until the last calf was found and sometimes it was from nine thirty to ten in the morning before they were ready to start. Besides that large band of cattle ate off all the grass so bare that our cattle did not have much show to get anything to eat. So, we decided to drive on and leave the company as we could travel much faster without them.

After we had traveled with them several days or nearly a week we got up early one morning and hunted up the cattle belonging to us. Seven wagons started out without stopping for breakfast. We went several miles then stopped to cook breakfast and let the cattle feed. After stopping about an hour we hitched up and went on. On looking back we saw at a long distance behind the other company coming. But they came so slow they never caught up with us and we saw them once after, that was in the evening before we camped, they camped some distance from us. Never after did they come within sight.

We soon came to the Goose Creek Mountains, (Grouse Creek Mountains), a small mountain range running north-south in the northwest corner of Utah.) a range of not very high mountains, but quite steep to go up. We women were in the habit of walking up every bad hill. We, Eliza and I had five children. She had a baby about three months old and we left and we left larger children in the wagon and took the smaller ones out when we got out to walk. We never got the team to stop while we got out but jumped out behind the oxen on the wagon tongue. We would get out on the tongue then give a quick jump out because when we stopped the team all the teams behind had to stop too as they generally kept pretty close together and the man behind would get mad. Sometimes he would curse.

In going up the Goose (Grouse) Creek Mountains I got out first then Tom Smith, who was helping to drive the loose stock, came to get their baby out so Eliza could get out. As he tried to get down he fell and the wheel went over him but did not hurt the baby. His leg was painful for sometime and he had to ride until he was better. We never would try to get out or in the wagon after that without it stopping.

We traveled down the Goose Creek for several days. (Grouse runs south in Utah near the Nevada border and sinks as it nears the Salt Lake Desert.) The feed being pretty good on that creek and across Thousand Spring Valley, a large valley covered all over with hot and cold springs. Some of the hot springs the water was so hot one could not bear our hands in it. There were one or two places there where cold springs were 39

close to hot ones.

At last after several weeks we struck the forks or branches of the Humboldt River (That would be in the vicinity of the present day Elko, Nevada.) One night before we came so far I think, but I can't keep exact account of each campground, neither is it necessary but we camped in a valley covered with scrub cedars. They were from fifteen to twenty feet high. There was lots of good bunches of grass for feed but no water. We decided to stop. I think we had some water in the wagon enough to drink. We made a fire. It was after sundown when we came in camp but we had not been long in camp when a band of Indians came to the camp and acted like they were going to attack us. They fired their guns and were saucy (rude; impudent.) There were only about nine or ten man and boys in camp large enough to use a gun while the Indians were about fifty or sixty.

We thought it bad policy to fight them so asked what they wanted to beg. If we had been mean or attempted to drive them off they would have killed us all. We therefore told them we were friends and would give them something to eat. We collected bread and crackers, our crackers were home made, some had coffee and tobacco. They wanted whiskey also but there was not a drop in camp and we did not give them any. At last they went away. We were not troubled again with Indians who showed any hostility.

After several branches that emptied in the Humboldt and meeting many difficulties we got to the Humboldt. (Elko) Often the road needed fixing, sometimes the streams had washed out the road, and sometimes the water was so deep it came into the wagons and wet some of our things. Sometimes it took all day to go a few miles, as we had to help each other over bad places. When we finally got on to the main stream of the Humboldt the road was not so rough as it was more level but there were swamps from overflows that always occur in the spring.

The grass for the most part alkali and the stock did not like it. But then there were reeds in the water and in the islands and the stock ate those and did well. Of course we had to look after the stock and see we got a good place to camp for if we did not our cattle perhaps could not get through and we should be left in the lurch. We did not go over twenty or thirty miles a day. When we got to a good campground we stopped if it was before night for fear we may not get a good one at night.

We traveled down the Humboldt for a long way. I don't remember how far but we were about twelve to fourteen days on it then we came to the sink of the Humboldt (Near Lovelock, Nevada, about 80 miles northeast of Reno.) That is it sinks into the desert.

There we saw the first house since we left the settlements in Utah. It was only a shanty and was a stage station for it was before the railroad had been built.

We stayed there a day or two to rest our teams before crossing the desert. The women washed their clothes and baked enough to carry us across the desert (Southwest across Churchill County.) The desert is forty-five miles across. I think there had recently been a well sunk in the desert for folks to water their stock. We started at night to cross the desert as it is better for the cattle on account of the sand and heat in the daytime. It took us one day and a night to get across. There were more bones of dead cattle and horses on that desert than I ever saw before or since. The bones were of cattle of the early travelers to California who had over driven their stock. So when they came to the hardest part of the journey they gave out. There was also a lot of old wagons and iron enough to set up a foundry.

The sand on the desert was so deep the teams could scarcely draw the wagons and 40

we got out and walked a good deal of the way. The sand used to get into our shoes and fill them up so we had to take them off and empty the sand out. I took my shoes off part of the way and walked barefoot it being much the better way. When we got to the well in the desert we found we had to pay twenty-five cents per pail of water and it was poor water at that. The cattle were glad of it.

We got to the sink of the Carson River (The Carson River flows northeast heading out near Carson City, Nevada and sinks into the desert) the next day about noon. We camped at a place called Ragtown, There was only one cabin there.

Then we went on to a place called Eagle Valley, near Gold Hill and then passed the new town of Gold Hill (Near Virginia City.) It had not been started long for the great silver excitement was only just begun. It was not until later that the great rush was to the silver mines. There was where I first saw a Chinaman. It was a day or two after we got to Genoa, a small town at the eastern foot of the Sierra Nevadas (About 10 miles east of the south end of Lake Tahoe.) We passed a short distance from Carson City then only a few scattered houses.

We stayed at or near Genoa about nearly a week and bought a few articles of dry goods but our purses were scant and we bought some calico to make some aprons for the children and a waist for ourselves. I think we got to Genoa about the third of July (1859) but anyway we spent the fourth there. There was no celebration only the American flag was hoisted. Some English folks there tried to persuade us to stop there for then we could have taken up land anywhere but the men did not want to stop and I was glad afterwards as all the roughs in the country came there after the silver excitement.

When we next started we made the eastern summit of the Sierras. We passed a small garden kept by a lone man. He had lettuce, onions, and other truck (vegetables raised for sale.) It was the first garden we had seen since we left Utah. We bought some onions. They tasted very good after we had been without so long. The second day we crossed the line into California. We camped at noon at the southern end of Lake Tahoe then began the ascent of the second summit. When at the top we began to go down, down and no more uphill until we came to El Dorado town (About 50 miles east of Sacramento.)

We camped at Strawberry Valley. There were no houses there then. I think only one old hunter or herders cabin. It was getting warmer the farther we went and it got quite hot before we got out of the mountains. I think we were three days going from Genoa to Pleasant Valley. That is the way we came. There was an abundance of fine timber all the way through the mountains, the largest I had ever seen. We camped in a Hazel grove one night and gathered some hazelnuts. We camped at Pleasant.

Most of our company had either gone another way or left us. We went on and in the afternoon of that day we got to the little town of El Dorado. As we were going through the town Smith met a man he had known in Utah. He insisted that we should stay and go back with him as we had passed his house. So we went and stayed there all night. They fed the cattle. The man was Mr. Allen and Tom Smith knew his wife. He had crossed the plains with them. We have been friends ever since.

CHAPTER TEN SHINGLE SPRINGS

The next morning we started and got to Shingle Springs at about noon or before.

41

We camped there for the day and William and Tom both got a job on Grey's Fault to mine for a man named Wilson. The next day we moved down near to the mine and camped under a large oak tree. There we stayed for a month.

Then Eliza and Tom Smith left us and went to Amador County to live at Jackson. I think they stayed there a year or two, and then came to Placerville where he got a job in a shoe shop to work.

In the meantime we bought a miner's cabin. The cabin was small and had only one room. The man had made quite a raise and was going back to the States to see his folks.

He had two partners, one named Clark and the other Slocum who now lives at Shingle.

They could not let us have full possession of the cabin at first for they had hired an old Dutchman to work in the claim and he had to sleep in the cabin. We cooked and ate there and slept in the wagon. They used to haul their pay dirt up to a place called the El Dorado. There was water there to wash the dirt. They used an ox cart and put the old miner to work at the sluices. The place is near where Donavan’s used to live. The miners used to clean up the sluices while the others were away and change the gold for money then drink it all away. We found one or two bunches of gold he had taken and tied up in a rag after the fashion of miners. We knew he had stolen it and after we found him out he gave the gold to the owners who could not always be at the claim.

Well, one day there was a nugget missing out of the miner's cabin. It was solid piece worth he said one hundred dollars. He brought it out to show us soon after we came to California. I had never seen but one piece of solid gold before and that was in Parowan, Utah. A California miner had it but the rest of our crowd had never seen a nugget before. The miner who lost it was John Sanford. There were three of them in the company. They used to put the nugget in a box of green coffee and put it loose under the bed. I did not know where it was but the man he hired soon found it. The same miner also lost some gold shirt studs. He said a girl gave them to him and that was why he prized them.

I had now lived in the cabin only part of the time. The hired man stayed there and slept and cooked but I undertook to sweep it and tidy it up as much as I could while the miner was living in it. I took down the things on his shelves; a sort of cupboard where they kept their dishes and groceries, and cleaned it for it was very dirty. I took a whisk and swept it off then washed the shelves off and replaced the things. It seems he put the studs loose on the shelf and I swept them down when I swept the floor they were swept out on the dirt at the door where their woodpile was. John, the miner, who owned the chunk of gold, missed them and he thought I had taken the gold and the studs. I had not seen either to know where he kept them. I felt indignant. It was the first time I, or anyone belonging to me had ever been accused of stealing.

The other miners in camp did not believe I had taken it but they thought the man they hired had taken it for he was not a regular miner only an old bum who would not work only to get enough money to buy liquor with. He was dead broke when he came to the camp and now seemed to have plenty of money. They watched him and concluded he was the guilty party. He used to quit work some afternoons and go to town to get drunk, play cards, and then bring home a bottle of liquor. He had not yet received any pay and he spent money so freely he was noticed. The other miners in camp or some of them started out to find where he had sold the nugget and went to several stores.

Finally one went to Lotus and there found where he had changed the gold. They 42

came back and after consulting together had the old thief arrested. They searched him and found about fifty dollars on him. He was tried and sent to jail. One of the miners panned out the studs from the woodpile.

John Sandford went east. I never saw him after, as he seemed ashamed to stay in camp after he found he had accused me wrongly. I don't know if he ever came back to California or not.

Soon after an Irish man and wife came to work in the place and wanted to buy a place to live so William sold them our cabin and bought another from another miner who was going back. This man had a family. He had made a raise and was going back to stay so they said. We heard afterward that they came back. That cabin had two rooms and was more suitable for our family than the small one.

That fall there was a large quantity of acorns and the trees were quite thick so as a man had given William a hog I thought I could gather them. I gathered about eleven or twelve sacks full that fall. I also took in some washing to help with the money to buy things I needed.

There were not many women around then. In Shingle there were about four women and about eight on Grey Flat. What I call Grey Flat commences a little below upper Placerville and Clarksville Road and the Spencer Ranch.

There were as much as fifty miners in the same place. There was not much amusements when only a ball once in a while. Therefore, the miners used to get together at each others cabins to play cards, tell yarns, sing, and drink whiskey every Saturday night and Sunday. They usually went to town to change their gold and pay up their month's bills at the store. They always ran a month on credit then paid it all up. The rest of their money they generally spent in treating their friends to liquor and drinking it up and playing cards. Few saved any but they were a generous good-hearted set of men and always ready to help anyone in need. There were no paupers or tramps in those days and no excuse for any. Everyone could get work and if he could not there were plenty of places where he could find good pay if he went out to hunt a mine.

William worked for Jack Wilson for several months then Mike Donavan persuaded him he could find good pay if he went out on his own hook. So he quit Wilson and he and Donavan went to mining together but they were both green at the business and did not make as much as if he had hired out.

Early that winter my third child was born. There was no woman nurse to be had.

He got a doctor to attend me but after the baby was born I needed someone to work around and to take care of me. I was not as strong as I had been in my other confinements. Mrs. Dunke, an English woman, who lived about half a mile off, came several mornings to wash and dress the baby, but there was no one to do the work.

William was never a good hand to wait on a sick woman, nor to chore about the house. He was so cross and impatient with the children that I was always glad when he went to work. I used to get the children to bring in the wood. William used to bring in some water and I could not put the children to fetch it for it was a well and I did not want them to go near it. Nigger Andy lived close by and he sometimes drew me a pail or two of water. I used to have a small tub and put it on the ground and thus wash out a few things by sitting down to it.

I often got homesick, but after my mother died that fall, I never cared to go back to Utah. I got over my homesickness after awhile and with three children to wash, sew, 43

and care for I never had much spare time. I took in washing all I could do with having my own work to take care of. I had my hands full. There were but few women that wanted to take in washing. Their men used to boast that they could support their wives without their having to take in washing but I often needed a little money to buy things. We were not over flush. William always growled if I spent money on dry goods. The peddlers often came around but they were so dear and one could not get much off them for a few dollars and their goods were poor. We could not get such good things then as we can now.

Some weeks I made three or four dollars washing and sometimes more. I could have got all the washing I could do but had so much of my own I only did what I could.

Calico at that time was worth thirty to thirty-five cents per yard. We had to pay twenty-five cents for a spool of thread. Buttons fit for the children's dresses were fifty cents per dozen. Pins fifty cents a paper and everything else accordingly. I could not get any fine dresses if they were to be had for they cost too much. I was glad to get good calico.

The next spring we moved down to the other ranch. It was Bissel's Ranch where we were living and he wanted William to take his garden to plant on shares. He had nearly two acres in the piece and there was free water. William thought that was a good chance especially as Bissel would plow it and furnish the seed. We moved our house down near the garden spot and planted the garden. It is only about half a mile from Grey's. That was not called Grey's Flat then. I was the first at that time to call it Grey's Flat. There was at that time three or four families of Grey's on that flat.

I tried to make butter to sell. We only had one cow the one we brought from Utah.

She was a pretty good cow since she had the run of Bissel's ranch. I made from five to six pounds a week. That was considered good then but I had no cellar or cool milk house else I could have made more. William dug me a small cellar but it did not have enough ventilation and I could not keep the milk long. I used to sell the butter around to the miners. Our house was then built under a group of oak trees to keep it cool but we never had it finished for one end was left open and I could not go anywhere because I could not shut up the house. There was a fine spring of cold water in the ravine near our house but it is about a hundred yards from the house so it was quite a distance to carry it but it seemed to be my luck to have to carry water a long distance.

There was a reservoir near and I and the children used to go into it often to bathe.

We put on old dresses for bathing suits. The reservoir was in a deep cut that had been mined out and brush and wild oats grew on its banks so no one could see us. That was the last chance I have had of having a good place to bathe and I missed it after I moved away. I think a good bathing place is as much benefit to a woman as a man for health.

We had a good garden and could have made considerable out of the vegetables if William would have tried to peddle them among the miners but he was no hand for anything like that. We had a fine melon patch but when they were nearly ripe a crowd of big boys grown up nearly men came one night and made sad work with them. They cut up and plugged and otherwise destroyed nearly half the melons. They would have brought us at least thirty dollars. There was no excuse for the willful waste because we should have given the boys all a treat when they were full ripe.

We bought another cabin intending to make a barn to put some hay in for the cow.

I had raked enough hay for her after Bissel had hauled in all of his hay. They did not rake it and said I could have it. I got about a ton. Hay at that time was worth about 44

fifty dollars per ton although only grass hay. I knew we could not afford to buy any that fall.

William was told there was apiece of vacant land near Shingle Creek and between that and Palmer's Ranch he wanted to take up some land for a home so he went to look at it. He found a good spring there he thought we might use the water to irrigate the garden. He moved the cabin we had bought to the place intending to move all the family there as soon as we could get all the garden stuff off.

As soon as he had put up the cabin a man told him he owned the land but we found out after he did not. He only claimed it for stock range. There was no fence or any other improvements on it but I believe he would not let us take the cabin off again, at any rate it was left there. We had to hire a team to haul it for William had sold the oxen and wagon very cheap.

Soon after William heard of a ranch for sale partly improved. It was said there was a cabin on it and sheep, sheds, and corrals. He went to look at and found it was an old sheep ranch. The owner had removed the sheep and wanted to sell out the improvements it had. So William bought it. We moved right off. It was on a Monday, the first day of October 1860 that we moved in.

We found it a very lonesome place. There were no women neighbors near. The land on the ranch was as good as any around but it was all covered with brush and timber except about thirty acres in the flat near the cabin. I thought the place very lonesome and did not like it at first for there was more agreeable place to be had at that time.

But I believe William chose it on account for he seemed to like to put us in the most lonesome places he could find because he did not like me to visit nor receive visitors. He said home was the place for a woman and he never thought she wanted a change or recreation. As I had no horse nor any conveyance to take us we would have to walk and I always had a baby to carry, I therefore did not go visiting often.

We built another room onto the cabin for a bedroom. We now needed two beds and furniture was not easy to get. I don’t think one could have got any short of Sacramento and then not as good as one can get now and the prices were high. We brought an old step stove along. It was about the size of a number 6 stove. It only had a small oven large enough for one small pan and was up under the back part of the stove.

One could not bake in it very well because it always burned the bread. After we had been on the ranch a year we got an old Bucks stove that I had so long. I think it cost forty or fifty dollars at that time and it had enough cooking pots and kettles for our use. Now I could bake good bread and cook a meal without inconvenience. But although that was the only decent furniture I had gotten, it was a long time before I got anything else.

William stayed at home the first winter to fix up things. He built another room on the house, pulled down some sheep sheds, built a fence a fence with it for a garden, then built a chicken house. There was enough old lumber to build a barn to put the hay in.

Then he bought some trees and grape roots enough to supply our own use for the table, but he calculated to raise more grapes. After he had fixed up the fence for the garden he got a lot of cuttings from Smith and put them out. Then he spades up a part where the old corral was to make a garden. There was considerable sheep manure there although a man hauled a good deal of it away. William was mad but could not do anything.

The Corral made a good garden.

He got a team to plow the rest the next year. We put out strawberries and 45

blackberries and in a year or two put in more grapevines and peach trees. It was a year or two after we had planted our trees that he undertook to dig a well. We had to carry water from the spring and it was hard work especially as I had to carry most of it myself.

He dug the well about twenty feet deep with the help of one of the miners who lived near and who offered to help. They dug until a small quantity of water began to leak in the well then quit for some reason. I think it began to rain. They intended to finish it sometime but like most things that are put off, it was never finished. I had to carry the water for the house for years after. Sometimes when I carried the water I was too tired to do much else the same day.

William never mined much. He never seemed to strike anything rich. The best place miners had been worked out. Still there were good diggings, for those who knew how to look for them. He though he would work out for wages. I often tried to persuade him to clear off a piece of ground each year if only an acre and put it into hay as hay was from fifty to fifty-five per ton in winter and he could raise enough off ten to fifteen acres as would bring as much money as he could get all the year by working at ranch work for wages. I think he got sixty per month for ranch work and that wages did not last long for people kept coming in who were glad to work for less.

In the meantime I was left to take care of the ranch, hoe, care for the garden, irrigate, hunt cows, milk. Our heifer we had traded for on the road to California did not have a calf that year. We traded her to Gaffney for another he had bought which he said would have a calf in two or three months but the she did not for a long time. About a month before she would have calved, for she was beginning to spring, someone put dogs on her and threw her down. She never got but was dead when we found her. So we were still left with only one cow and she had gone dry. We were left without butter and William never bought only once I think. He had to pay from one dollar to one fifty per pound. Neither did we have a hog once but it did not last long, as there was not anything to save it.

We went several years without keeping a hog then I determined to have some.

When I got enough money I could spare after the bills at the store were paid, I bought two small ones. It was sometime before we had more than one cow but we got a small calf and raised it to a cow. One winter a poor little half starved calf came there with ours.

She stayed with them until she was grown for we had not found the owner and think she came out of the hills. She ate all she was worth before he had a calf. By this time the other heifer had one so I had three cows to milk. They were only scrubs and I did not make much butter.

I had raised quite a lot of chickens and some ducks and I sold them also some turkeys and a lot of eggs. The chickens were common scrubs but I sold about seventy dollars worth of eggs the second or third year after I came to the old ranch. (1862 or 1863) The first year after I got there my little Kate Isacto was born. William wanted to name her Isact for his sister and I for Aunt Catherine. She was born November 15, 1861.

Then I had but little time for anything, neither for pleasure nor for visiting but I went once in a while. I had to carry one baby and lead another.

Before this time Eliza and Tom had bought a place on Shingle Creek, a partly improved ranch. Eliza wanted a ranch where she could keep a cow, a horse, some chickens, a hog or two, for they were poorer than us although he made good wages at his trade when he wanted to stick to it. I think they were pretty poor for he had begun to gamble.

46

Eliza had promised to come and look after me when my baby was born. I sent for her but she was sick in bed and could not come. I had to do the best I could. But I am ahead of my story for come to think Eliza did not move to their ranch for a year or more after little Kate was born. She had a girl baby born while they were living in Placerville but she died (The baby) there before they moved to Shingle Creek.

Again I was left to shift as best I could have no woman to stay with me. William went to get Mrs. Johnson, an old colored woman to come. She came just as the baby was born. It was in the evening. She dressed the baby but could not stay all night but she promised to come again in the morning and dress the baby again. We offered to pay her if she could stay with me a few days or a week but she would not. She did not have much to do at home but she either thought she was lowering herself to work or she did not want to do me the favor. I had not engaged a doctor this did I ever after although each time made it more needful. The doctor charged twenty dollars and William growled at the expense. I should have got a woman if I could have got a good nurse but there were none to be had. Well the colored woman came twice I think to wash the baby and that was all the help I got. She did not charge me anything. It was very good of her.

William only stayed at home about three or four days then went back to work. It was very rainy and we had no wood. There was a cord or two of green white oak cut up in the flat. I had gotten someone to cut it but it was not dry and there was no way to get it home only by getting the children to haul it in their little cart. They had one made out of a dry goods box. I was small and only had two wheels made out of a board. It would hold about an armful so between the storms I sent them up after wood. They brought enough to fill the wood box but sometimes they would go off and play and not bring any. Of course I could not expect such small children to do much and it is quite natural for them to play. The oldest was only six years old and the next four. I had to depend on them for some of the water. They had a small can to carry it. They brought it to me from a barrel of rainwater or sometimes from the ravine but it was a hard way to get along.

The butcher came to bring the half hog we ordered and was surprised to think that I had been left alone with so small a baby and with lots of small children that wanted to be watched and cared for. Constantly I was afraid they would get into danger. The ditch agent called and he also was surprised to find me alone with a lot of small children and not fit to be out of bed. There were potatoes and flour and some groceries in the house and now the butcher had brought the meat so we had enough to eat but no butter nor luxuries. I was very weak and could scarcely walk. I sat down as much as I could know it did me harm to be up and standing around on my feet but I could not get along sitting down all the time. I did a little washing sitting down. I made bread the same way. The children had to eat although I could not eat much. Luckily I had no cow giving milk so there were only chickens to feed and the children did that. I think I could not have suffered so much in after years if I could have rested a little longer in bed.

In a year or two more our orchard had grown so we had enough fruit to eat. The trees were two years old when planted and in that manner they grew fast. We also had strawberries and vegetables. The care of the garden fell on me for the most part.

William worked in the garden while at home but there were lots to do. It was not as large then as it is now. It used to keep me busy and the chickens used to bother it.

We had a small Scotch terrier dog, a sharp little fellow, and I taught him to drive the chickens out of the garden. He was so sharp he would not let any come in.

47

Sometimes he caught them then he would kill them unless I was quick enough to stop him.

But chickens were worth one dollar to one and a quarter each and we could not afford to lose them. I intended to try to teach him not to kill them if I could. William got him one day before I was out and dressed in the morning and took the poor dog and hung him. I was so sorry for he was a great help to me. He kept the wild hogs away and cattle and other animals.

Fruit canning was not as common in families then as now but still some put up fruit.

I had never put any up and I wanted to save some for winter. I had heard putting it up without sugar could save it. I had never seen it saved with out sugar. Mother used preserve fruit with sugar. She made jams and preserves out of plums, currants, Cherries, etc. but sugar with me was scarce. We only got three pounds for a dollar and I thought I could put it up without sugar. I was told to make the jars airtight. I tried but could not save many the first year. I learned how after awhile but it cost me experience.

Folks used to come to our house often in the fruit season to get a good fill of fruit and we never charged them and they also got melons. I sometimes sold some out but we had no team, nor any way to peddle anything unless we carried it o one arm. I made butter but the miners as a rule did not use butter only one here and there so I had to take it to either Placerville unless I had some conveyance so I used to take them to El Dorado. That was a hard task for me to have to carry it.

We got our mail from El Dorado and as it cost twenty-five cents to send a letter we only sent or received one once in a while. The Pony Express brought the fastest mail but there was a stage also I think but it was slower.

Eliza had moved to Placerville. While living there she had a little girl, which died quite little. I think she was not two years old when she died. I could not visit her much then for want of a team. Her boy Tom came to visit us one summer and stayed several weeks. When he went home I went with him and we walked all the way. William was then at home so I left the children with him. The baby was quite large then so she could drink milk but he wanted me to come home next day and I came although very tired and stiff from my walk. Eliza wanted me to stay longer but the fear of something happening to the children or for fear I should get a scolding for stopping I went home.

I learned after considerable experience it doesn't always pay to run here and there at the bidding of an exacting (making severe or excessive demands) man. I wanted to stay longer and see more of the town but duty has always been my first thought.

The children got to rambling out in the woods and although I cautioned them not to go far nor out of sight they often did and gave me great worry and trouble to hunt them up. After awhile they got to know the way back but we had a big Newfoundland dog that always went with them and I felt less worry after we got that dog for he was a sensible dog. They often attacked snakes and would catch toads and squirrels and I was constantly worried when they were out of sight. My caution was not of much use.

One day Ellen came home crying and hollering like something dreadful had happened. Her hand was bleeding and I thought a snake had bitten her but it was a squirrel. The dog had run one into a hollow log and she took it by the tail to pull it out and it bit her but that taught her a lesson.

I often had to go to hunt the cows and as they could range around for a long distance it often took me several hours to find them. But although many places were strange to me I never did once get lost. I went one or two miles out of my way and while 48

I was away I was always afraid something would happen to the children. I was more afraid they would get burned than anything else. I always put the matches out of their way and never in summertime left a fire. They did pretty well only sometimes did some mischief.

After awhile William thought Ellen could hunt the cows. I did not object to her fetching them when they were near but was afraid to have her go far. He insisted she could as well as to run the woods and hunt squirrels and skunks.

One day late in the fall he sent her to get the cows. I knew the cows were not near and objected but as usual he had his way. She started and was gone two or three hours and I worried because it was getting dark and I feared she would lose her way, and meet a wild animal of some kind that was dangerous as a Spanish cattle of which there were lots around at that time. After eating supper I started to meet her or to hunt for her. I persuaded William to go one-way and I another. Before I had gone far I heard William call me and I went back. He had met her coming home but she did not get the cows.

It was at this time that I heard of the capture of Vicksburg for the war (Civil) was in full blast. (General Pemberton of the Confederacy, surrendered his garrison at Vickburg to Gen. U.S. Grant on 4 July 1863.)

William was generally away and I always had to pick up wood in summer and often in winter I was left without. There had been a good deal of wood cut off the place before we came and there were always lots of chips and sometimes blocks I could burn in the fireplace. I would take a sack to gather them with. We had no other connivance then.

William afterwards bought a wheelbarrow and then I used that. In the meantime I did all the washing I could get from the miners were not as good as they had been and most of them did their own washing. Besides so many spent their money in drink. There were several men that never paid me at all. Finally I quit taking in washing except occasionally where I knew the pay was sure.

In winters at last I used to look for someone to cut my winter's wood. I had been left without so many times. I did not want to risk being without. William would cut some but never enough. The winters were very rainy and to be without wood with a lot of small children was not very pleasant.

In the fall of '63 I think Eliza and family moved to their new home on Shingle Creek. I was glad to have her so near although about five miles off. We could visit each other once in a while. She always gave me good advice and was like a mother to me more than a sister.

On January 20 1864 my first boy was born. I had always calculated to get Eliza to stay with me ten and she had promised to if I would let her know in time. Although I sent the children there early in the day I was taken sick. She was sick in bed and could not come. The children having to walk all that distance did not get home until near dark.

There was no one that I knew of that I could depend on to come. William was at home that winter so he could attend the fires. He could cook his own meals for he had batched before I got married to him but he was a poor cook and never would cook if anyone else was around and he never baked bread. He was always cross and impatient with the children when I was sick. I was quite sick and had been for twenty-four hours.

He then thought he would get Lucy Freman to stay a few days with me. She was an Indian woman but had been raised with the white. Her husband, a white man, was a poor 49

shiftless drunkard. I thought she would do if I could get her to come. She had to go out to work to earn something. William went after her. It was long after dark when he started and he was gone nearly one hour and a half and I was very sick and the baby was born half an hour or more before he came back. I had stayed by the fire as long as I could because it was warm and the bedroom was cold for it was a cold raw day. I got so bad I could not get in bed and there was no one near when the baby was born so it had to lie on the earth for I could do nothing but cover it with my dress and a shawl or something I reached from a chair nearby by putting a poker under it.

He came at last with Lucy and she brought her baby along and he was very cross and kept crying all night. She dressed the baby but he did not seem all right. He could not nurse and seemed to have something in his throat that rattled and he did not cry out but seemed dull and could not move himself like a healthy baby. He lived until the next day. I think about twenty-four hours for I could not tell when he died. As it was the first boy I naturally wanted to save him if possible but I guess he was to die. Of course I should also want it to live if it was a girl. William had long wanted a boy. He was always disappointed when a girl came.

They made him a coffin and he was buried on the homestead. (About 5 miles east of Shingle Creek in El Dorado County, California.) It was a long time before I was able to get around. I think I was seven or eight weeks before I could go out doors. I got Lucy to do two or three washings but with the aid of the children and what I could do by sitting down we got along some way. I would have kept Lucy longer if I had it to do but William did not want to keep her to do the washing. She only stayed three of four days the first time then came again to wash. She washed very reasonable for those times. She only charged me a dollar a day. I have never been as strong since although I have done a lot of hard work of every kind. I never gave up at triffles.

Our cattle now had increased and it took more time to look after them. Besides I had more cows to milk, more butter to make. As our income was not much I wanted to make all I could to help out. Although wages were lower goods did not get any lower and it was a hard scratch to make both ends meet. William had up to now work for ranches for the most part and they did not give big wages. He got two-fifty per day and board during the summer. I used to take care of the garden but it was quite a job with all my other work. We raised a garden every year. We did not pay as much for water then as later. The old ditch company wanted to encourage people to put in gardens and orchards.

Ours was one of the first in that neighborhood. If I had a horse and spring wagon I could have done pretty well peddling fruit and vegetables but I was tied down and could not go away from home on account of the children.

I did not visit very much because of having too much to do. I visited some of the nearest neighbors sometimes. Scarcely any of my Irish neighbors ever visited me. They had a general dislike to English people. I did not then know the reason. I never had any dislike nor prejudice against anyone on account of country at that time nor have I now only on their meanness or dislike to me for being English. I thought then everyone was free and equal and that no prejudice existed on account of country but I found I was mistaken.

That summer we had a good crop and it taxed me to save it, which I did by cutting it and drying it. We had no frames to dry it on so I took our old wagon cover and spread it on the ground to put the fruit on. Also sacks, newspapers, and old blankets, or anything 50

to keep it off the ground.

In February 9, 1865 my little Katy died of diphtheria. (An acute contagious bacterial infection of the mucous membranes of the throat, and secretes a potent toxin, which causes tissue destruction and the formation of a gray membrane in the upper respiratory tract that can loosen and cause asphyxiation. Also, the toxin being released into the blood stream can damage other organs.) She had gone out with the other children and got her feet wet. They did not come in right off and I did not know they were wading in the water. I was busy and not noticed how long they were out, not an hour I think. I changed her as soon as I got them in but that night I could see she was not well and the next day she was sick. I thought she had a bad cold. I gave her a bath and tried to sweat her with hot drinks of tea but she did not get any better.

I wanted William to go for the doctor but he thought she only had a bad cold and would soon be better. We had no doctor book then so I could find out the symptoms that ailed her. Her throat began to swell. I put liniments of hot potatoes, etc. on it. We heard that the diphtheria was going around then William went for the doctor. He was not at home and did not come until the next day. It was too late. She was dead.

The other children all took it and for several days or weeks I thought I should lose them all especially Selina. We had a hard time to save her. They were sick for several weeks for the disease left them very weak. After the danger was over we buried little Kate beside her brother. But it seemed as if we were not done with sickness. It was not long after that before they were all sick with chicken pox. That was not very severe but I had to keep them in the house for fear they would take cold. That was a difficult task in that small house.

After they got over the chicken pox the whooping cough was around and they caught it or got it some other way. That hung on them for several months before they were all rid of it. They would cough and almost strangle sometimes until they were nearly black in the face. Selina had it the worst and she sometimes nearly scared me to death for fear she would choke to death. Finally they all got well and I thought our sickness was all over for a time. I think we were free from any for a few months but the next summer we got the chills. I think Ellen got them first then Selina. They had them every other day as I had never had them nor been where anyone else had I at first did not know what was the matter. William was not at home and no one ever came to see me for it seems after they had diphtheria and whooping cough it scared them and I had to do all my work and nurse the children all alone.

William had had the chills and fever in the states and he knew what ailed the children as soon as he saw them shake. He got some quinine to give to them but that was only temporary help. As soon as they came back again we got the doctor and his medicine was not any better. The chills and fever stayed in the family more or less for two or three years.

The doctor said we must move the house for the irrigating of the orchard was the cause of the chills. We could not do that then for William was at work and he did not want to lose his job. We could not afford to hire a carpenter. I think they charge five dollars a day so we put it off intending to buy lumber and build a new house. In the meantime I got the chills. I had felt them coming on for sometime. My bones would ache and I would feel so tired. I could scarcely do my work but I had to get the cows for there was no one to fetch them and I did not want (them) to get dry (The cows to stop 51

giving milk with inconsistent milking.) One day while after then I got my first chill. I thought I could never get home I was so sick. But I did at last.

It was about a month or less after little Kate died, my little John was born. It was thirteen months from the time my boy died. My John was born on the fourth of March, 1865, the day Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated the second time for President of the United States. It snowed that day and was cold. I had no one with me but the children.

I was sick all day and nearly all night the night before and until about three or three thirty o'clock PM. I sent one of the children to the claim where William was at work to fetch him home. I think the baby was born a few minutes after he came. We cut it loose wrapped it up and with his help got in bed for I had been lying down before the fireplace.

Then he went and got Lucy. There was no one else what I could get.

Well it was about as usual with me. Lucy did not help much. William worked that summer. Carrie and Ellen went to school. They often took walks in the woods to gather flowers, moss, and leaves in autumn and sometimes to read a book or Bible.

One night sometime before the war ended the children were all gone to bed and I stood out of doors in the garden on the west side of the house. I was looking west up the old trail for William to come home. It was a beautiful moonlight night and on the hillside where little Kate was buried I saw stretched out like a large sheet, all-glittering in the moonlight thirty-six bright stars like bright gold or blue. It looked fine but soon vanished. Then I knew or believed that the Union would be preserved and none of the States go out of the Union. I think that was a vision but I was not superstitious as some folks would have been. Neither did I think I was inspired. The Union was soon after saved.

Mr. Hall told William he would let him have lumber enough to build a new house and wait for the money until he could pay him. He had heard we had the chills and would have to move before we could get rid of the (chills.) We got the lumber hauled and started the house. William could not spare more than a week at first to work on it so he got a lot of men and had a house raising. They put up the frame and put on the rafters and some of the walls. Then William got old Dick to help him until they got the roof on. He worked at odd times and on Sundays until it was up. We had lived in the old house for six years when we moved into the new one on October 6, 1866.

William worked on the railroad depot for a long time. We fixed up the new place.

The first of February 1867 Christopher was born. It was on a Friday about five PM. I was alone except for John and Selina. I had sent the others off on an errand to try and get Mrs. Goodman or her sister to come and be with me awhile but neither could come.

Her sister was working out and Mrs. Goodman's baby was too young for her to come so as usual I had to do the best I could. I think I got Lucy Freeman as usual. Ab (Freeman) was such a low down man I did not care to have anything to do with them more than I could help. The day was very fine and as it was so near to Saturday I did not send for William. He was very impatient with sick people and did not was to lose any time.

I got along as well as I could but I think the baby was born over an hour before anyone came. I had everything ready fearing no one would come in time so I put the baby in a shawl and in bed. I got in bed as best I could but it was a long time before I got strong. I never was as strong again as before my last three were born. She tells of her experience of getting her strength back and of the cold weather they had then. She tells of the picnics and dances that were held in the neighborhood. She tells about the 52

trouble they had in raising enough hay to feed their cattle and the loss for want of hay.

I was getting nervous from losing so much sleep. I was not nervous until so much sickness and worry made me so.

It was years before I ever had a headache and William took to drinking. He always liked it but in Utah when we were there it could not be got in the place we lived and the church did not approve of people drinking liquor. But it was the fashion in California and the men he worked with used to drink and treat him. A man was expected to treat if he got treated else he was sneered at for being stingy. He nearly always kept a jug of liquor in the house but did not spend much in saloons. I guess he did what the rest of the men did. It worried me for I was always down on drunkenness. He would not listen to me but take counsel of anybody else. She sent her children to school.

I found there were quite a lot of Irish in the neighborhood and although at that time I never had any prejudice against them nor any other people of other countries yet I found out the had prejudice against the English and tried to prejudice others also.

They tried to make it uncomfortable for us as they could. I never bothered them nor visited them after I found out that they had no use for English unless I had business with them. I also found out that they never visited Protestants unless on business. But I paid dearly for my experience.

I can't tell all the trouble we had through some spiteful people but if we had some trouble before my husband died we had ten times more after. We had our stock poisoned, some driven off, our horses were driven down to the range on the Satrobe road and Deer Creek. Then once they got attached to the horses down there we could never keep them at home without tying them up. It made us endless trouble. I got hobbles to put on them so we could keep them within hearing. But with all my other work to do I could not always watch them with the children in school. Sometimes I put them in or brought them up near the house at night and tied them up. Often the rope was cut or untied and before we could find them they were far away.

They went to the big celebration in Sacramento for the completion of the railroad from Omaha to Sacramento (10 May 1870. Connection of the first East-West railroad at Promontory Point, Utah) William lost his job on the railroad and did odd jobs here and there, mostly ranch work until he died which was in October, 1873 ´They raised lots of goats.

She tells of her experience on the farm after William died until the time she went to work for wages. She tried to get a nursing job but was told that she was old enough so she went to an intelligence office and paid them two dollars for them to get a job for her. She worked for sometime with different people at housekeeping jobs.

I can't keep track of every incident but will try to tell those I best remember. I shall skip two or three years until 1876. We had a team we could work with. We had the two colts I had raised but only one of them that we could ride. Alfred Smith offered to break Balley if I would let him have it for a while to ride as his mother only had the two team horses and she did not want the boys to ride them all the time. I let him take the colt to break. He was hard to break but Alfred got him broke so he could ride him. He was not very safe for a woman to ride for a long time but I did ride him and he threw me several times.

Mrs. Smith's husband had been killed about two years before. He had been murdered in cold blood while on his way to S S (Shingle Springs) for their mail. It broke 53

Mrs. Smith all up and upset things in her family considerable. They had a hard struggle for quite awhile to get along but about 1876 the boys were taken down with typhoid fever. Quite a number of people died with it and Mrs. Smith lost three of her boys, the three oldest. The other boy was only about ten years old. First Fred died after about nine or ten days. Then Alfred was sick about two weeks. Willie lived over two months.

They did all they could or all the doctor advised but of no use. She sent for me to come and help nurse them. I went and stayed off and on about a month but I also got so worn out sitting up to care of the sick that I got sick. The boys would not let anyone but me or their mother do anything for them; although lots of the neighbors came to sit up with them. But no matter who was there their mother or I had to give them their medicine and dress the sores.

In the latter part of November Willie died. His mother's grief was almost inconsolable as well it may. She was left with only two children, her daughter Louise and Little Sidney. She was a broken down delicate old woman left alone and in debt for the boys' illness had run up her bills. She stayed with her daughter but her son-in-law was rough (A slob) and she did not feel at home there. She moved back to the place but could not do anything with out any man on the place to work. She was very downhearted and one night she got up and went out of doors and her boy soon missed her. He raised the alarm and the neighbors turned out to hunt her. They hunted all night and nearly all the next day before they found her. She was only a short distance from the house. It was thought by some people that she had been called up out of bed then chloroformed then put her face in the water so she would drown before she came to. It was never known what caused her death. I felt her loss very much.

Well things went on pretty much as usual. I sent the boys to school for I was resolved I would not let them lose the chance of an education if I could help it. It was hard on me to get along without anyone to help me with the garden, stock, and chickens, butter making, housework, plowing, and studying how to get along.

In 1879 my father died. He had lived twenty years after mother died. He had married a sister of John Walker's wife and she had two sons. She died giving birth to the third. (All three were Henry Walkers.) Sometime later he married a widow with several children. She was from Hereford. When he divided up his property he left each of his children one tenth and his wife also. He also left one part of his property to an old hired man who had lived in the family for years.

At his death I sold my right as also Eliza and Selina to John. Ed sent me the cash and that helped me lots. With it I bought a wagon, a horse, harness and built the barn, and had some fencing done. It was not enough to get all I needed. We got some tools, plow, harrows, etc. John was sent to business college soon after. I let him have all the money I could spare but that was not much. Selina was teaching and she let him have some. He worked for his board but had to buy clothes and books.

About 1883 Ellen (daughter) moved down in the neighborhood and her husband built a small house on section 19. They stayed there until 1886. In the meantime Richard, her husband, got the rhumatism (rheumatism) and was not able to work for quite awhile. He then moved the family up to El Dorado for a while but finally moved back to the ranch.

There had a good Templers (Templar) Lodge organized in the fall 1881 and Ellen, Richard, myself, and John joined it for John had now graduated and Christopher was going to business college at Stockton. But I am a little ahead of my story.

54

In 1883 while Christopher was moving Ellen from Plymouth having no one only my little grand daughter with me, and having my hands full. I could not keep a strict watch on the goats and sheep and they got over into Arnett's clover patch. The clover did not amount to much but he got mad and sued me for damages. I offered to pay him but he preferred to go to law. As he likely bribed the Justice of the Peace they decided a big damage against me. We had a second trial. Men were appointed to appraise the damage and they said it was not worth more than $2.50 but the expense of court and everything cost over $300. Arnett had the goats and stock put into a pen and charged for their keep. We had all the goats, 75, and 36 merino graded sheep and two head of cattle sold to pay expenses.

That was a great loss to me and crippled me considerable but I lived through it and kept out of debt. Of course I went without necessary comforts we needed. I have been perpetually harassed ever since. Bovel was friendly with Arnett and I believe between them they continued leaving the gates open getting my stock out or someone else’s in my place. I of course tried to catch the culprit but only from tracks I know we have had many cows and other stock poisoned. I believe I was watched and could not catch the culprit. We fenced the garden so we could keep the stock at home but a fire went through the place and burned off several posts and someone used to lift the wire and put forked sticks under to get the cows out and the other stock in. I consider we earned the old ranch several times over by the worry and troubles we had to keep it but I did not want to be compelled to sell and leave just because some selfish people wanted me to.

No good will come of my enemies. There is the day of reckoning coming sometime.

Many persons would have had petty revenge but I never believed in taking the law in my own hands. I am glad I never tried to do evil to be revenged of any of my enemies. I leave them in the hands of God who will sooner or later punish them.

Ellen moved back to Plymouth (South of Shingle Springs about 15 miles) in 1886 but she had little Lucile born before she went. I could not go to her house to attend her and so I had her come and stay with me while she was confined. I could then be on hand to wait on her between times for there was no one at home to see to the stock, do the household chores, and wait on a sick person. I had to be continually on the watch to keep the stock from going to Arnetts. I was nearly worn out and I had such fearful headaches at intervals I could scarcely do anything but lie in bed. I had to hire someone to do the harvest and cut wood. I had to board them and that made extra work. Christopher came home from business college and he ran the ranch but soon went away to hire out on several occasions.

It would scare me almost half to death when the woods got on fire, which often happened of late years. We lived about twenty-four or twenty five years on the place before there was afire in the woods near us. A year before Ellen moved back to Plymouth there was a fearful fire in the woods and if it were not for the assistance the neighbors gave us we should have been burned up, all our buildings and house. I will here say the neighbors for the most part were very good and accommodating and ready to assist each other. My boy Chris has worked to help out others put out fires in the woods but the year he moved Ellen up from Plymouth he got the chills and fever and was not able to do much. He had them so bad for the time he could not do anything and one night while I was alone with him he had what I believe was congestive chill. I had seen one other case in Willie Smith the night he died and was convinced he had one. I made a fire and some 55

hot water and put bottles to his feet and around him. He came out of it but he was unconscious all the time it was on him and cold.

I had quite a lot of trouble to get prove up on my land (Homesteading improvements) for a lot of miners tried to prevent me from proving up, but they failed.

In 1883 0r 1882 I forget which the same crowd tried to prevent me from getting my patent by sending to Washington to prevent the patent being sent. (A patent, in this case, was a document giving Mariah rights to the land.) Again they failed and I got the patent all right.

It is no wonder I became attached to the old ranch. It is said the more trouble a person has to get a thing the more they prize it. The more trouble a child or wife gives a person the more they think of them. (Trouble is not used in the same context, as one would read it now.) A sickly child who is ailing and giving his parents trouble and anxiety is generally loved and petted more than the healthy one.

The good Templers order only lasted two years like most other societies in that neighborhood. The lodge and Sunday school did not continue there but it did much good in a social way while it did last and helped the time to pass more pleasantly. I spent many pleasant hours there and learned much and improved myself in many ways. I also made many new friends and acquaintances there. In Placerville where I have gone many times to meetings of the Good Templers and Sunday School Conventions and church societies and spent some pleasant hours there for several years after our lodge broke up. After Ellen moved away and the lodge broke up time passed very dull and I did not have much time to visit only on Sundays, which I did whenever, I could.

Ellen moved to Petaluma (About 20 miles south of Santa Rosa and about 15 miles east of the Pacific Ocean) I think in 1890. (They moved to Sacramento in 1890.) My sister Eliza lost her husband and three years later '93 I think Ellen lost her husband.

The same year my sister Ann Wheeler and her husband came out to visit us in California.

I had not seen her since 1850. I was very glad to see her and him. They stayed about three weeks in California. The weather was so wet while they were at my house we could not go any place. (Eliza lost her husband in 1890 and Ellen lost her husband in 1893.)

The next year Ellen lost her daughter Mary. She has had more than her share of trouble but she got enough money to buy her a lot and build her a home. Like most poor widows she has had a hard time to get along.

My children one by one have left the home nest to do for themselves. John went to Truckee in '94. I think the next New Years he got married. There is but one left as the stay of my old age. I of course did not expect him nor any of the children to stay single for me but for an old bachelor is the most miserable of persons I think. But when Chris got married it seemed like the last prop had been removed. My last child to stay gone. I had always wished them all well and prosperous but it seemed to me I should be left alone in my old age or if I stayed with them I should be like an encumbrance. I never thought to get married again two years before, but thought it best when I was likely to be left alone.

In 1897 I went to Utah to see the folks and bid them final farewell as I thought then forever. I did not think I should so soon go back to live there but fate was otherwise. In the fall of 1897, Chris moved to El Dorado to live and help John in the store and I was again alone. Only Emery Williams came up and stayed with me until spring. In the spring Nora Wheeler, my niece from Utah, came to visit us. She stayed 56

with me nearly two weeks but I could not take her any place scarcely because I was harassed so much by folks letting out my cows and horses. It kept me busy all the time to hunt them up and bring them home.

In the meantime Thomas Wheeler wrote to me to come to Utah and marry him. He said he was lonesome since Anne died and that the young folks ran around so much he wanted a wife. I at first told him I should not marry but after him reasoning with me and telling me I should perhaps be much of my time alone and that it would be better for me and him. I concluded it would and decided to go there in the fall of 1898. He wanted me sooner but I did not want to go sooner besides it would take some time to get ready. I left my dear old home on October 6, 1898 to go to my new home. My story is told as far as my life on the old ranch is concerned.

I have had many ups and downs, many sorrows and troubles, anxieties, many joys and much happiness. The old place is still the dearest place to me in all the world. The place I spent so many happy years. Thirty eight from youth to old age and like an old tree dug up by the roots will not flourish in any other place so well as the old one. I bid the place and the dear ones farewell. I hope yet to see it again but perhaps may never.

If I have not given my children as much nor done so much for them as other parents perhaps I did the best I could and I wish I could have given them each 1,000 dollars but I did not have anything to begin with and the little I did have was gotten by hard work and economy, dollar by dollar and inch by inch. I hope none of my children may have to go through all the hard workships I did although trial and poverty often brings out the pure gold in the character of man and woman. Through trials we are made perfect, through industry and economy made prosperous, but without the Grace of God we shall not be blessed.

I may write a short history of my life in Utah but will send this to the folks the first chance I have. I have not worked so hard since I came here but find plenty to do as any woman can who wants to. And now goodbye and God bless you all.

Maria Burston Wheeler P.S. I forgot to mention that in 1894, just ten years after the Good Templers Lodge was organized at Rose Springs. There were six farmers alliance branches organized in El Dorado County. One at Greenville in 1894. Chris Burston and I joined, as did some twenty or twenty-five others. Chris was secretary but on account of some adverse influence it like every other society in that county broke up after it had run about two years. Perhaps saloon interest or some other evil power was the cause.

57