Richard Litson Jr. Emigration Account, Part 5 of 7

Glade Family Line

Wednesday, June 20 — Much thunder on the night of this instance.

Thursday, June 21 — A fine morning. Thunder and lightning all night. We got wet

Friday, June 22 — We had a fine day and night.

Saturday, June 23 — A fine day. A little lightning about 7 o'clock. A fine night.

Sunday, June 24 — A fine day. We had a few showers at night.

Monday, June 25 — A fine day.

Tuesday, June 26 — A fine day and night.

Wednesday, June 27 — A fine day and night,

Thursday, June 28 — A fine day and night.

Friday, June 29 — A fine day and night.

Saturday, June 30 — I went down to the river for the first time since we arrived. We had a fine day until evening when we had a few storms, but we had a mild night.

Sunday, July 1 — A fine day mostly. I went down to the river. I saw a steamer Yellowstone. It stormed at night until some time in the night when it turned off.

Monday, July 2 — We had a fine day. We had our dinner of fresh meat and potatoes. We had a fine day and night.

Tuesday, July 3 — A fine day and night.

Wednesday, July 4 — A fine day and night.

Thursday, July 5 — A fine day and night, but windy.

Friday, July 6 — A fine day and night.

Saturday, July 7 — A fine day and night.

Sunday, July 8 — A fine day and night.

Monday, July 9 — We saw a mail coach passing by heading west. A fine day and night.

Tuesday, July 10 — We started on our journey across the plains about 10 o'clock a.m. and traveled about 2 hours and a half. We stopped and camped then for the night.

Wednesday, July 11 — We traveled again and passed by and through many camps. We camped by a beautiful house and good water and a little wood. We had a fine day and night.

Friday, July 13 — We started and went 9 or 10 miles and camped and went again and passed a train at 7 o'clock. A fine day and night.

Saturday, July 14 — A fine day and night.

Sunday, July 15 — We traveled along and came to a dusty place to camp. We went on again and passed many teams going down east. We saw a grave on the roadside. We passed another grave at evening. Fair.

Monday, July 16 — We saw a grave. We travelled along and camped for dinner and stopped there that evening and night.

Tuesday, July 17 — We travelled along, camped, went again and camped. We had poor water. Fair night.

Wednesday, July 18 — We traveled along and camped by the Platte River South. We had a fair night.

Thursday, July 19 — We went along by the river side and saw many Indians. We had a wet night.

Friday July 20 — A fine day after the rain. We camped and went along and passed through Kearney City with Post Office and Bakery Co. and camped along further on. We had a dry night.

Saturday, July 21 — We traveled on and had water from the river. We have not had much wood for 4 or 5 days. We had a warm day and night.

Sunday, July 22 — We made a long journey that day and camped. Fine day and night.

Monday, July 23 — We had a fine day but at night a light thunder storm. It lightninged all night but did not rain.

Tuesday, July 24 — We had a little fall of rain that morning. There was a girl hurt very bad by falling off one of the wagons. We had one shower of rain in the night.

Wednesday, July 25 — We went along until we came to a house named Junction House. We stopped there until 4 or 5 o'clock and went a couple of miles again and camped by a couple of houses. We had a dry night.

Thursday, July 26 — We started and went onward, camped by a house on top of a hill. We went on again, we came to a grave on the right hand side. The name on it was H. Voigt, (died, shot?) 1865, Sept. 15, age 31 years. We camped by the river again. We had lightning that night but no rain.

Friday, July 27 — A fine morning. We went along 5 or 6 miles and saw another grave named K. Milden, died June 2, 1864, late of Preston, England. We had a little lightning but no rain that night.

Saturday, July 28 — A fine morning. We traveled on and camped for dinner. We had thunder and lightning and rain. We stopped until it had cleared off. Thunder and lightning that night but no rain.

To be continued...

Book of Account of Voyage and Training and Overland Travels (Part 1—Part 2—Part 3—Part 4—Part 5—Part 6—Part 7)

Picture of lightning from Flickr, courtesy of pennuja, available under a Creative Commons license.