Autobiography 1865 Millennial Star
On the , while
with the camp of Israel building up
winter Quarters, on the west side of
the Missouri river, (then Indian
country) I passed through one of the
most painful and serious misfortunes
of my life. I took my axe and went
two and a half miles on to the bluffs to
cut some shingle timber to cover my
cabin; I was accompanied by two men.
While the third tree was falling, which
was an oak, over two feet in diameter,
I stepped behind it some ten feet, and
also to one side the same distance,
where I thought I would be entirely
out of danger; but when the tree fell,
there being a crook in the body of it,
which struck a knoll on the ground,
the whole body shot endways back of
the stump and bounded, and the butt
of the tree struck me on the breast
and knocked me several feet into the
air against a standing oak, and the
falling tree followed me in its bound
and caught me against the standing
tree, and I came down between them;
before reaching the earth, however,
I was liberated from them, and struck
the ground upon my feet in a badly
bruised condition. My left thigh, the
whole length of it, and my hip and
left arm were much bruised; my
breast bone and three ribs on my left
side were broken; my lungs, vitals and
left side were also bruised in a
shocking manner. After the accident
I sat upon a log until Mr. John
Garrison went a quarter of a mile to
get my horse. Notwithstanding I was
so badly hurt, I mounted my horse,
and rode two and a half miles over a
very rough road, dismounting twice in
consequence of miry places, my breast
and vitals were so badly torn to pieces,
that at each step of the horse the pain
went through me like an arrow. I con-
tinued on horseback until I arrived at
Turkey creek, on the north side of
Winter Quarters. I then became
exhausted, and was taken off my horse
