Bishop Hunter organized a Mormon company to cross the plains leaving Kanesville (Council Bluffs) Iowa in June 1850. The group crossed the Missouri River, followed the North Platte River into Wyoming,and went along the Sweetwater River to Great Salt Lake City. This was the first company organized under the Perpetual Emigrating Fund, established in Salt Lake City in 1849 to help the persecuted in Europe and the United States.
This account kept by the clerk of the company, Robert Campbell, gives the names, occupations, and ages of members of the company, people met, places stopped en route, names and ages of people dying from cholera, numbers of cattle, herds of buffalo, weather and road conditions, tools necessary for such a trip, and a physical description of the country through which they travelled.