and we have little hopes of getting any more, but the grass is up in the sloughs, so that the cattle can fill themselves, after a while with that. About 11 O'clock A.M. last thursday, we were overtaken by Mr. Kinsman, the man I had the cattle of. We expect he will go to Oregon with us. He drives one team and helps take care of them, which is a great help to me. I had begun to think of stoping at the Bluffs, for I did not expect to have money enough to get me there, for it had cost me more than half the money that I took from Princeton. We think we have taken the shortest and best road, for we are half way or more to the Bluffs now.
The journey has been verry hard on me for my feet have been blistered and galled and soaked, and pinched all up, besides having the rheumatism in my right knee, but I am getting over it all, I think. We are all well, and we get along much better than I expected we should, we have met with no accident, any more than loosing my hatchet, hammer, and 2 or 3 bags.
Bagley has not come up with us yet, they went by New Boston, but we expect to meet them at Oskaloosa, tomorrow, we think [they] have taken a diferent road for that place ...
We are in Oscaloosa, it is the largest town we have been in since we left the Mississippi. Our company has not yet come up, and we think of starting for the Bluffs without them.
All well.
Kanesville[1] eight miles north of Council Bluffs
Brother Levi,
I said in my last that I would wright at the Bluffs, but I came verry near missing of it. We came here on thursday the 19th and found our company all here, who passed us only one week before, and got here only one day and a half before us. I believe
- ↑ In 1846 the Mormons were driven from Nauvoo, Illinois, and started on their journey west. "About the end of June, 1846, the first column arrived on the banks of the Missouri ... This spot, now known by the name of Council Bluffs, was christened Kanesville by the Mormons; Larned, History for Ready Reference, 5890.
