. . . Saturday April 15th 1861. At 20 minutes past 7 o'clock a.m. the Saints from the South Hampton Conference. Took special train for Liverpool, 77 in number. By some misunderstanding on the part of Elder George Busgow, my box which had be left at Portsmouth to be forwarded to Reading & Sisters Sarah Nobes & Mary Whitley had not come so I had to stay behind for one week, to come in the ship Underwriter instead of the "Manchester" which the rest of the Saints came on. There were altogether 80 Saints from the South Hampton Conference. That [-] including myself and the 2 sisters from Portsmouth. 52 of these were from my district, 9 of which I had baptized into the church. I stayed with Brother George Reed in Reading until the following Thursday, when according [p. 184] to arrangement Sisters Nobes & Whitley came in & at 7:20 on Friday morning we took train for Liverpool where we arrived at 3:30 p.m. After procuring a comfortable place of lodging I went to the office in Islington [42 ISLINGTON WAS THE ADDRESS OF THE BRITISH MISSION OFFICE] and had a talk with President G. [George] Q. Cannon & settled for my emigration.

Next day, Saturday, April 20th, went to the office with Sister Sarah Nobes where we were married by Amasa Lyman, one of the Twelve Apostles. Went on board the ship Underwriter to sail to New York. Our passage money was £ 3.16. There was on board 620 passengers of the Saints, all bound for the Valley under the presidency of Millo Andrewes [Milo Andrus.] We had a pretty good voyage of 29 days to New York. I was sick for 2 day during rather rough weather [p. 185] but on the whole we got along exceedingly well, only 2 deaths, & that was 2 babes, both of whom were put in zinc coffins and brought to Florence and buried in the burying ground.

We left Liverpool 23rd of April and landed in New York on the 22nd of May, (Wednesday,) where I meet Brother Simon Hiblud, William Bowdin, George Davis, & Brother Dudman, who were my old acquaintances. They were glad to see me & treated me very kind. I spent the evening and stayed all night at Brother George Stone's at Williamsburg.

Next day got our luggage to the railway station and about ten o'clock on Friday evening, the 24th, we started by special train for Dunkirk, 474 miles, where we changed for Cleveland, 142 miles, where we arrived on Sunday morning, the 26th [p. 186] and changed for Toledo, 113 miles, where we arrived about noon the same day after changing into another line. We had quite a long talk with a number of the inhabitants of Toledo who came out to see us. They were very kind & treated us respectfully and asked us a great many questions about Mormonism. We then came on to Chicago, 244 miles. Provisions were very cheap in this place, but here we found quite a bitter spirit against Mormonism, much more than anything we had before seen. We again changed & came on by train to Quincy, 240 miles. Here we found provisions still cheaper than in Chicago, butter 8 cents per pound, beef 3 cents a pound, eggs 5 cents per dozen. I was here taken sick with the [p. 187] diarrhea which lasted 3 or 4 days. From Quincy we took steamboat on the Mississippi River to Hannibal, 30 miles. From there we took train to St. Joseph, 206 miles. We came this distance of 206 miles in about 7 hours. We then came on the steamboat up the Missouri River, 260 miles to Florence. One man died on the steamboat whose name I don't remember. He was from the north of England.

We landed in Florence and the camping ground on Sunday, June 2nd, having traveled 1699 miles in 9 days. Spent a few days in Florence when Brother George Hatt, an old acquaintance of mine, came in from Rockport, 6 miles [—] Missouri River and took us to his house, where we stayed about 5 weeks. We were treated [p. 188] very kind by Brother & Sister Hatt, although they were very much behind in Mormonism and have since joined the "Young Josephites."

About the 1st of July the teams came in from the Valley to help the poor Saints, about two hundred wagons in all. I assisted in helping of the emigration and on the 11th of July we left Florence, ours being the last emigrant train for the season. . . . [p. 189]

. . . We arrived in Great Salt Lake City on the 23 of Sept. 1861 having accomplished the journey across the plains of 1050 miles in a little over ten weeks. . . . [p. 192]

BIB: Yates, William. Journals, 1848-1891, pp. 184-89, 92. (Ms 8479 Acc. #34358). (CHL)
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