Copy of a letter written by Joseph Greaves to his cousin
William Greaves, in England

Submitted by Brett Gledhill

Ancestors- Peigree Chart

Logan, Cache County, Utah
Sept. 10, 1897
Wm. Greaves:
Dear Cousin,

Yours to hand yesterday. We were pleased to learn that you were all well and that you had enjoyed yourself in a summer outing. I have had plenty of time these last three months to have taken a trip from home. But my wife is not able to go anywhere and it is poor business to take a team and travel alone. So I have been in this shop every day this summer doing the few little jobs that would come in. They have amounted to about one or two days a week. I could have found plenty of work if I had gone in the field but I have quit that now. We are all well except my wife who has a bad time always in the night. I do not know what it is to have a full night's sleep at one spell. After she lays down a few hours, then the flem will accumulate and sometimes it will take hours to get it up. If she could not get it up, she would choke to death. Last week I spent a couple of days visiting my family in Preston, Idaho. They were all well, and doing well. And the one I had always thought was the worst off was about to harvest ninety acres of wheat, and his brother told me that he thought he could have about two thousand bushels. They all have good crops; but there is plenty of hard work to take care of them. It is the hard work I can't do now. My wife tells me that I have an easy time of it now and that all I do for my board is water the lot garden. But when the fall of the year comes around I have to rustle up the money to pay the taxes which is quite an item in a new state. We were quite pleased to receive your Jubilee letter. You could not have sent us anything more acceptable as I had witnessed ours and now have a good conception of yours. I thought you would have understood that I received the paper and almanac when I wrote about the grand time you had on the River Mersey, because your paper was the only one that I saw an account of it in. It would be a good plan for us to commence from this time to number our letters and papers and then we can tell if we missed one and we could inform each other of it. I judge from your writing that you have read the papers I sent. I would be pleased to send you papers often, if I knew they were acceptable. I know that there is a great deal of prejudice about our people and it has been brought about through misrepresentation in the press as I see accounts of the like all the time. The travel through this country is so great now that we are becoming better known and many people seek for information concerning us. That is the reason why I would like to send the papers per chance they would get into someone's hands and they would learn the truth of things. You wrote that you would like to get an account of my journey. I have plenty of time to write, the way trade is at present but the thing is knowing how to do it. I have not had the benefit of a Common School Education. All I ever learned the short time I was at school in Mary le bone Liverpool was the first fourteen verses of the tenth chapter of St. John. But I will try to give you as good an idea of my journey from Liverpool to Salt Lake. I will have to do it all from memory as I never wrote a word at the time. You must overlook the spelling and composition. I know nothing about them.

I was married February 22, 1853 and wend on board the ship the next day and I think the following day we went into the river and were there several days before we set sail. My berth was not in the stern of the vessel. We had so little room that if we turned we both would have to turn at the same time. This was trial no. 1. The next was the lack of a sack of flour. If we had had the flour extra to what the ship company allowed, we would have had a pleasure trip of our journey across the ocean. When you are in one end of the vessel you get the full benefit of the heaving of the ship. I was appointed to scrape and wash the hatchway steps every morning, which duty I performed the whole of the voyage with the exception of the time of a storm when the hatchway was closed down, and we had to keep in our bunks. Just before this time my wife had made a caraway seed cake which we put in a sack and hung it within reach and that supplied our hunger while the storm lasted --(to be continued.)

With love to all, yours esp.

Jos. Greaves

Logan, Cache County, Utah.
Sept. 14, 1897

Dear cousin:

I will continue my narrative. The ship was named "International". There were 419 passengers on board, English and Scotch, the latter were near the main hatchway, and always had onion soup for breakfast, and that was about the time I was doing my work on the steps. So I used to get the full benefit of the aroma, and that has lasted me so far that I have never wanted any onion soup until this time as yet. In about a week after leaving the River Mersey we were in nice warm weather. For five weeks we had head winds and at this time we were only ten days sail from Liverpool. The Captain declared that with the same wind he could turn the ship and reach Liverpool in that time. Our president, Mr. Arthur, from Wales (I forgot we had quite a number of Welsh families on board) called a meeting and explained the situation to us. We then agreed to fast and pray for a fair wind. We did so the following day, and the wind changed that afternoon at 4:00 P.M. We made New Orleans in three weeks from this time and the captain declared that he had never sailed the same distance faster. During these three weeks we held many meetings and had quite a time of rejoicing. New Orleans is quite a distance up a river. We saw many slaves and their houses were close to the river. Their places looked very nice from the ship from what I could see. I thought slavery was far preferable to the poverty I had seen in Liverpool, but I could see only part of it. When we arrived at the dock in New Orleans there were the worst looking lot of men I ever saw ready to jump on board, but they were kept off, and they soon found out we were not going to land their. In about four days we were transferred to a large river steamer and continued our journey up the Mississippi River. Keokuk, Iowa was our outfitting point where we received our oxen, cows, and wagons. Here is where our camp life commenced. We were on the frontier of civilization; we remain here sometime waiting for our oxen. Here we were put in companies, twelve persons to wagon. Their were, I think, four families in our wagon, my family and that of an old man's was small. There was a captain over each ten wagons and a captain of the company of fifty wagons when we started from here. And when the wagon I belonged to was just pulling out a man comes to me and says, "You have been selected to remain here in company with three others to bring along a herd of cows when they come." I had never been one day away from my wife before since we were married. The company went some distance to a place called Montrose, and by this time they found out that they were too heavily loaded for a journey of 1,300 miles. Each family had a box, some had crocks and books. We had to lighten up; locks and hinges were taken off the boxes, and the boxes were all piled together and burned. Crocks, extra cooking utensils, books and anything that could be dispensed with had to be got rid of. The inhabitants of that place got lots of things for a few vegetables or little milk. When the cows came, life was something new for a tailor. The cows were purchased of farmers all over the country and were all strange to each other and of course would not travel together, and I can assure you we green horns had a hard time of it. They would go every way but the way we wanted them to go. When we reached our company my wife soon informed me of all the things she had to part with. We were allowed one box to a wagon to put in the best things of a persons belonging to the wagon, and me being away at that time, selected mine for that purpose. Our route through Iowa to the Missouri River to where Omaha now is was a distance of 300 miles. It was a wet season of the year. I had made myself an oil cloth coat to wear on the ship as I thought before I started, but had no occasion to wear it. But it came in good to put on the wet ground in the tent to make a bed on. The grass was up to our waist and every morning when we would go to gather up the cattle we would get wet to our skin. This 300 miles was one of the greatest trials I have ever passed through, except losing my wife. I had never been used to walking and it was a great deal of labor to me. I have many a time lay down on the ground and cussed the day I was born. I am sorry to say it but it is so. But long before we got to Salt Lake I could have walked many more miles than our teams were able to do each day. We were camped sometime where Omaha now is. It took quite a long time to ferry the wagons and cattle over the river. This place was called Caneyville, and the last place settled by white people. When we crossed the Missouri we were in the Indian Territory and one thousand and thirty miles of dry country before us. We made this part of our journey in a little over ten weeks. This part of the journey was hot and we would walk through rivers and creeks with our clothes all on and let them dry on us and not have any bad effect from so doing. We had two yoke of oxen to each wagon and two cows. Some men would break in the cows and use them. I drove the loose animals the whole distance, had one person at a time to help me. During the last 500 miles when the cattle were poor and sore footed I would be left a long way behind the company and at times when it was very dark. I could not have found the camp if it had not been for the sense of smell of an old gentleman that was with the. He could smell the campfire a long way off. Some time before we reached our journey's end our provisions became very scarce. Then we commence to kill our poorest cattle to make out the deficiency. If anyone ever learned the value of salt, we did at this time. (I have always been careful of salt ever since.) We live on poor beef alone and no salt too - it is something you cannot comprehend if you have not tried it. During our journey we could see many useful articles by the roadside that were left by those who were ahead of us to lighten their loads. Men would be stationed by these articles while the train would pass by them or some thoughtless persons would put things in the wagons and soon put us in the condition of those who had to leave them. I was so hungry the latter part of our journey that I had made up my mind that as soon as I got in the valley of Salt Lake I would commence to beg, but as usual the last day was a long way behind the company. And as soon as I got out of the mountains I could see the city in the distance. I left two oxen that had hindered my progress all day and traveled a little faster. When I reached camp my wife informed me that the people commenced to beg at every house they passed. When I learned that, it took all the courage out of me and one of our company, seeing we had nothing, give us enough to make us a supper. Thus ended our journey, on the 30th of September 1853. I kept no diary of those days so I cannot give you as interesting account as I would like to have done. We passed through many hardships the first winner here. We were in a strange country, and I had never done a days work at anything but my trade. It was hard for a weak, half starved individual like myself to learn to do common labor with shovel, pick, or saw. Every little job I would get would be different from the one I last had. My wife fared a little better than I did that first winter. She used to go and do the work of an aged couple and would get her food and be in a warm house. I would keep warm in the sun on the South side of some building. We got in a log house that winter, but had very little wood to burn. At night I would go to meeting to keep warm. However, we lived through our first North American winter. I have never regretted my coming here although it was a wild looking place then. But now all travelers say we have a fine country with the plenty of everything to make man comfortable. I must close, ever wishing that some members of our families may live to see each other. My love to all is the desire of my heart.

Yours,

Jos. Greaves