for loading and unloading, and to the necessity for tying up at night because of changing currents and shifting banks. There is mention of frontier settlements, of Indians along shore and of the varied passengers, among them a group of fourteen Baptist ministers, going to attend a convention. Their presence brought about the curious anomaly of “prayer meeting at one end of the saloon, cards at the other.” By Sunday, the 29th, the preachers had disembarked, and the steamer was “getting above moral and religious influences as we leave civilization behind and touch the wild and woolly west.”
The steamer arrived at Kanesville (Council Bluffs) on May 30, where the supplies were landed during a severe storm. The place was a “town of huts, and full of sharp dealers who live off the emigrants ... the outpost of the white man.”
Here Dr. Flint met Ben and Lewell with their sheep and wagons, but the crossing of the river was delayed for a week by the heavy rains.
After a final gathering of supplies, the purchase of an additional saddle horse and another wagon, the stock was ferried across the Missouri River and they found themselves “fairly on the plains.”
The personnel of the party varied from time to time. Dr. Flint says there were fifteen men, but does not name them all. Three men, after a couple of weeks, became faint-hearted and turned back. The teamsters, Jennings, who served also as butcher, White, the carpenter, and John Trost, the “Dutchman,” appear to have made the entire trip with them.
