Don Wildman

A dreadful accident happened here today.

A boat manned by green hands was taking a boat of cattle across.

The cattle rushed to one end of the boat, causing it to tip, and in a moment there was a mass of struggling men and animals in the water."

One man drowned.

Another, who was a good swimmer, remembering that he had left his whip, coolly turned around and swam back for it.

One can assume this sort of thing happened often enough to really at least a few times during these trips to leave quite an impression on these folks.

Yeah, as long as they're heading out of town, you know, you're just here for the day, go, move on.

Yeah.

Never mind the pile of trash you left behind.

Thank you very much.

Yes, I'm sure.

Here's another diary entry.

I want to read this one.

This is a year later than the last one, 1853, by a girl named Amelia Stuart Knight.

And it just mentions the weather factor that you brought up.

Saturday, April 23rd.

Still in camp, it rained hard all night and blew a hurricane almost.

All the tents were blown down.

Some of the wagons capsized.

Evening.