"DEPARTURE . . . On Saturday, the 31st, the Wellfleet, Captain Westcott, hence for Boston, cleared, with 146 souls of the Saints on board, under the presidency of Elder John Aubrey. This company intend going only to the States this season, and it is the last company of emigrants which we expect to send out during our present mission. . . ."
MS, 18:24 (June 14, 1856), p.377
"NINETY-SEVENTH COMPANY. -- Wellfleet, 146 souls. On Saturday, May 31, 1856, the ship Wellfleet, Captain Westcott, cleared the port of Liverpool, and sailed for Boston with one hundred and forty-six Saints on board, under the presidency of Elder John Aubray. It had been announced that the Horizon would be the last ship of the season to bring through emigrants over the Atlantic. But when that ship was ready to sail, it was found that the number of passengers on board exceeded the limit fixed by law. Consequently twenty persons were singled out and returned to Liverpool by the tug boat which had towed the Horizon down the Mersey. Those thus returned were comfortably provided for by the presiding brethren in Liverpool until the Wellfleet sailed, when they became a part of the company which crossed the Atlantic in that vessel. Elder Thomas C. Griggs, of the fifteenth ward, Salt Lake City, who was one of the twenty transferred from the Horizon to sail in the Wellfleet, states that the ship had a prosperous voyage. No deaths occurred in the Wellfleet company which consisted of a large number of Irish and other emigrants, in addition to the one hundred and forty-six Saints. The cleanliness and order observed by the Saints were in marked contrast to that of their fellow voyagers. 'I will remember,' writes Elder Griggs, 'seeing a devout old Irish woman getting between the pumps and on her bended knees say her prayers and count the beads of her rosary, stopping at intervals to catch a body vermin, which she would place on the deck and continue her devotion. At another time a storm appeared imminent and all hands were aloft taking in sail, the yards had been lowered
, and the loosened canvas would be caught by the howling wind and snapped with a report like that of a gun while the ship rolled from side to side and the spray came flying over the bulwarks. Amid these conditions the cry of fire! fire! came from below. The captain and mate dashed down the gangway to the Irish quarters and soon reappeared with a son of Erin, the cause of the alarm; he had set fire to his bunk by smoking his pipe in it. The officers soon smothered the fire and then proceeded to well douse the cause of it.
The Wellfleet arrived in Boston July 13, 1856, and the emigrants sought and found temporary employment in order to earn means with which to continue the journey to the
Valley. About sixty of them went to New York City for this purpose. (Millennial Star, Vol. XVIII, pages 377, 521, 542.)"
Cont., 14:1 (Nov. 1892), p.22
June. Sun. 1. [1856] . . . The ship Wellfleet sailed from Liverpool, England, with 146 Saints, under the direction of John Aubray. It arrived at Boston July 13th. The emigrants remained in the States until the following season."
CC, p.56
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