I was born May 10, 1840 at a backwoods place called Carroll's Ridge, British Province of New Brunswick, Canada -- Post Office, Fredericton. My grandfather, Patrick O'Carroll, with his wife Ann Negus and his sons William, Charles Negus, and Patrick cleared farms adjoining each other.
There I was born and there I remained till I was six years of age. On May10, 1854, my birthday, we took the Steamer "John Warren" on the St. John's River for our start to Utah. Father was presiding elder of the branch in South Hampton and was put in charge of a company of fifty-seven converts on their way to Zion.
I have slight recollection of our home, except that it was a large log house with an upper room reached by a ladder, a large porch facing East with a woodshed. The stable for stock was north toward Grandfather's place. A meadow surrounded the house, and a path led to the spring at the foot of a hill close by.
The recollections I have of home are of seeing men shovel roads through snowdrifts, which, when a pole was laid across, a load of hay on a sled could be driven under the pole; of seeing my father and my mother's brother, James McInelly, mowing in the meadow and hauling hay to the barn on a sled; of seeing a bear killed by grandfather and Uncle William; of being spanked and put to bed by my mother for taking my little brother George upstairs to swing while she was away and had told me not to do so; of being sick and lying in a lumber cradle, and my mother, as she passed back and forth doing her work, teaching me the hymn, "Come All Ye Sons of Zion." I have never forgotten that hymn. I cannot remember When I learned to read.
I remember going aboard the steamer, and of being sick. I remember landing at St. Louis, Mo., and the camp ground at Ft. Leavenworth, where my mother died of cholera, also my brother, Frederiok, and my sister, Emma, they three being buried in one grave.
I remember that start by ox team, but not much of the Journey across the plains, as I was very sick. My brother, George died two weeks after we started the westward trek by team, leaving my father and myself as the only survivors of our family of six. I was so sick and wasted I could not sit up. The days were hot and sultry, and I had no energy, not even enough to brush the flies from my face.
Father was so worn out with loss of sleep and grief and sorrow, that he could scarcely care for our needs and those of the oxen. He often crawled into camp on his hands and knees being too exhausted to stand up and walk. All the long and weary way across the plains he had to lean heavily on the yokes of his oxen for support.