In April, 1847, accordingly, a party of thirteen families were ready to start. Cosgrove had been trading during the winter, to get suitable wagons and ox teams. He preferred to make the eventful journey comfortably and safely, and lack nothing that forethought could provide. He did not belong to the poorer class, who had to make the trip partly on faith. Three well made, well built wagons, drawn each by three yoke of oxen—young oxen—and a band of fifteen cows constituted his outfit. He had young men as drivers, and his family was comfortably housed under the big canvas tops. He now recalls the journey that followed as one of the pleasantest incidents of his life. It was a long picnic, the changing scenes of the journey, the animals of the prairie, the Indians, the traders and trappers of the mountain country; the progress of the season, which was exceptionally mild, just about sufficed to keep up the interest, and formed a sort of mental culture that the world has rarely offered. Almost all migration has been carried on in circumstances of danger and distress, but this was, although daring in the extreme, a summer jaunt, with nothing to vitiate the effect of the great changes in making out the American type. The following particulars of the journey have the interest of being recalled by a pioneer now in his ninetieth year, showing what sharp lines the original experiences had drawn on the mind, and also being in themselves worthy of preservation. However much alike may have been the journeyings across the plains in general features, in each particular case, it was different from all others, and no true comprehension of the whole journey, the movement of civilization across the American continent, can be gained without all the details; the memory of one supplying one thing, and that of another supplying another. The experiences of the Cosgroves were those of the pleasantest kinds, the better-to-do way of doing it, without danger, sickness, great fatigue, or worry, and with no distress. After making the drive across Iowa and Missouri, in the springtime, when the grass was starting and growing, the Missouri River was crossed, waiting almost a week for their turn at Saint Joe, and then they were west of the Mississippi, with the plains and the Indian country before them. An “organization” was duly effected. Nothing showed the American character more distinctly than the impulse to “organize,” whenever two or three were gathered together. It was the social spirit. There was no lack of materials, as besides this party of thirteen families, there were hundreds of others gathering at Saint Joe, the immigration of that year amounting to almost two thousand persons. A train of one hundred and fourteen wagons was soon made up, and Lot Whitcomb was elected captain. Mr. Cosgrove says, “I was elected something. I have forgotten what it was”—but some duty was assigned to each and all, and the big train moved.