Crossing the Plains

Now my little old wooden wagon that I had come in from Nauvoo would not stand a trip across the plains. I started off to trade it off for a good wagon. I offered a large young horse for a little pony and a good wagon. I found a man named Richardson who offered me the very trade I wanted. But a monitory impulse struck me with such force I could not accept the offer; why I could not tell. When I got home my wife says, “Have you found any trade today that suits you?” I answered: “Yes, but I did not trade.” “Why not?” said she. “Because something almost as plain as words instinctively said, “No.” I found out afterwards the cause, as I was told Beason Lewis took the same bargain from him and went to The Horn with the property, and an officer followed him with a writ and took the property, and he had to wait until the next season.
But I cut and wheeled around among the people until I found Jesse Harmon, a good Saint who I believe was counseled to wait until the next season. He let me have a wagon that was fitted up in Nauvoo on purpose for crossing the plains, with large projections on either side of the top of the bed, with very high wagon bows. I did not want a better wagon and he took my little wagon and forty gallons of wine to boot. Now I was just fixed to my notion, in wagons and teams except one ox. When Brother Clark learned that I lacked an ox he says to me, “Brother Meeks, I will give you an ox.” He could not see how he could get off that Spring when there was nothing in the world in the way if he had just had the spirit of it. He had three good wagons and teams and was not enthralled anyway. Here was another providence of God in my favor in fulfillment of what Uncle John, as I called him, said to me in Pisgah when I gave up all the wagon and team that I owned to fit up the pioneers. Now I was ready to go to The Horn where we were organized to cross the plains.
When I shook hands with brother Clark on starting he cried like a child and never would have pay for the ox he had let me have. With a glad heart and joyful spirit we moved off and reached The Horn in good time and when the time came we were organized into Jedediah Grant’s hundred and Joseph Bates Noble’s fifty and Josiah Miller’s ten. They were all three as good men as were to be had anywhere; my family comprising eight persons, myself and wife and two daughters, Elizabeth grown, Margaret Jane not grown, John Henderson, a lad I had raised, and a boy and girl belonging to Orson B. Adams, John Adams and Betsy Parson. Now our hearts swelled with the glorious expectation of leaving our persecutors behind. We started not knowing where we were going or what was ahead of us, trusting in the living God, and started like Abraham, not knowing wither we went and we did have a good time! Notwithstanding the hardships and trials and troubles and sickness many had to endure.
The Lord did pour out his blessings upon us abundantly. The plains furnished an abundance of meat and the prairie grass abundance of milk. Now the incidents that took place crossing the plains are so complicated I will only mention a few in this connection. One case of Sister Edwin: the first I heard of her, she was about dying with what they called the Black Kanker in her mouth and throat. She did die in a few hours and we halted to bury her, and her daughter Rachel Edwin was found to have the same complaint and quite deep seated. I told them I thought I could cure her. My daughter Elizabeth waited on her while I doctored her and she was not long in getting well. The palate of the old lady’s mouth was eat up and the fauces of her mouth partly gone. All was in a mortified state. I am convinced that it was the diphtheria they both had.
The next case was Gilbert Summer’s wife (he being with the pioneers). She was in a company two miles distant from me but they sent for me and when I got there I found her very low with a fever, and with all the faith and courage I could raise I broke the fever and she soon got up again. Another case was as I was standing guard one night close by Brother Noble’s wagon, I heard some person groan like if they were nearly dead. In the morning I inquired of Brother Noble who it was; he said it was Richard Norwood the man who drove his team. On examination I found it to be Black Kanker as we called it; but it was undoubtedly the diphtheria in its worst form, for his whole palate and fossils of his throat appeared to be one solid mass of putrefaction. I told Brother Noble if he would look among the crowd and get such medicine as I would name I would try to do something for him; for without help he could not live but a very few days. I well recollect one medicine I used; it was rough elm bark, taken off a tree which stood close by. It is one of the best antiseptics in the compass of medicine.
In the first settling of Kentucky and Indiana we used to put our hog’s lard and bear’s oil in large troughs. We would sometimes have maybe fifty gallons at a time. It would sometimes turn green going into a state of putrefaction. We would take the red or rough elm bark in long strips and lay it lengthwise in troughs and it would take all the smell and color and taste of putrefaction out of it and render it as sweet as any other oil. I will just say that he was cured in a much shorter time than I could expect. So we all moved on in order again.
The Lord had His eye on the end from the beginning. To illustrate I will relate an incident which took place on the plains, the blessings resulting from which are visible to this day and will be in all time and in eternity. We had a stampede on the plains and lost sixty-two head of cattle which we never did find. We laid there eight days not having team enough to travel; but knowing we must move on or perish we mustered up all the available teams possible and that was one ox! President John Young was minus one ox, he and I being entire strangers. He heard that I had a cow that would work and when he found me he said, “Brother Meeks,” “Yes sir,” I answered. “Well we are now organized for traveling, if I had one more animal; Will you let me have that cow to fit me out?” I replied, “No.” At this his countenance fell like a blaze just put out, but says I, “I will tell you what I will do, I will let you have a good ox and will work the cow myself. As she is heavy with calf, I would rather work her myself.” At this he brightened up like a fire in a stubble field, so we all took up the line of march full of the spirit of rejoicing; and while I am speaking on this line of Providence resulting from me letting President John Young have an ox, I will trace that line out far enough to show that a person will never lose his reward for doing good.