. . . We were getting along very well financially until the customers heard that we were Mormons. Some people were very bitter toward the Mormons in those days and they would not buy their supplies from us. Those who owed father would not pay their bills, so at last we were forced to close our store.
In 1865 my father sailed for America, leaving his family in England. The following year he sent for his family consisting of mother, three brothers and myself. I well remember leaving England. We went to the train with my oldest brother Joe, who had to remain in England two years to finish his apprenticeship as a shoemaker. We all felt very badly about leaving him. I remember how mother cried. We sailed on the ship Arkwright leaving Liverpool May 30th, 1866. There were 450 Latter-day Saints, & we were seven weeks on the ocean. I was eight years old, but I remember the trip very well. The company traveled steerage & had facilities for cooking their own meals. We had many storms to interfere with the crossing. When it was bad weather & the wind would start blowing us back in the opposite direction, the chaplain, Daniel P. Calkins, [Caulkins] would come below & say, "You Mormons had better hope that the wind changes or you will never see Brigham Young." One day the wind blew us back as far as we had traveled the day before. The captain told us before we left that we would have seven deaths & we did. The first one to die was a member of our company. The captain did not want any burial services held, but the people insisted. The funeral services were held at the front of the ship, then the officers would rush to the other end & slide the bodies over the side. The bodies were first wrapped in a material similar to canvas & had weights tied to them. The sharks followed the ship all the time & the officers were afraid that if they came too near the boat there would be trouble. [p.50]
We finally landed in New York and went by train to Nebraska, where Father met us. I remember how happy we were as it had been over a year since we had see him. He had come from Utah to help us cross the plains. He had a covered wagon and five or six yoke of oxen. We joined the Horton D. Haight Company. There were 65 wagons altogether and we had a very hard trip. . . .
. . .I had my ninth birthday just before we arrived in Salt Lake City.
We left England in the spring and arrived in the Salt Lake Valley just in time for October Conference, October 15, 1866. . . . [p.51]
BIB: Beazer, Ellen Burton, [Autobiography.] Our Pioneer Heritage, comp. by Kate B. Carter, vol. 10 (Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1967), p.50-51. (CHL)
(source abbreviations)