[TO] William Greaves:
Logan, Cache County, Utah
Sept. 10, 1897
Dear Cousin,
. . . I will try and 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. [p.1]
I was married Feb. 22 1853 and went on board the ship the next day and I think the following day we went into the River [Mersey] 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, then 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 pleasant trip of our journey across the ocean. When you are in one end of a 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 Hatch way was closed down and we had to deep in our bunks. Just before this storm 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 respectively,
Joseph Greaves
BIB: Greaves, Joseph. [Letter] (Ms 8100), #2, pp.1- 2 Acc. #29559. (CHL)
(source abbreviations)