. . . Me and my brother John made up our minds to go to America the next year and in January we left for Liverpool and went on board ship with our families on the 6th day of January, 1851. Me and my [p.26] wife and children, Charles Henry, David Fisher, and Mary Hannah and John Moore, my nephew. His father and mother were dead. My brother John and family, there were six of them, and Alfred Longman and family, there were six of them. The first night we were in the Irish Channel; it was a dark night, there were no lights on the ships and a schooner was coming from the opposite side and it raked us pretty bad. It tore off our main yardarm and did some other damage. We had to get into Cardigan Bay for repairs and remained there for two weeks. There were four hundred and seventy-six Latter-day Saint people on board ship. The name of the ship was Ellen. There were a few deaths on the ship. James Cummings, Crandell Dunn and William Moore had charge of the Saints on the ship. We arrived in New Orleans on the 14th of March, 1851. We then went on a boat up the Mississippi. The name of the boat was "Alex Scott." We went to St. Louis. Then me and my family and my brother John and his family, and Alfred Longman and his family went on another boat to St. Joseph, Missouri. I, and others, worked on the boat up to that place. . . . [p.27]
. . . We arrived in Great Salt Lake Valley on the 27th of September, 1853. . . . [p.31]
BIB: West, David, [Autobiography], Treasures of Pioneer History, comp. by Kate B. Carter. Vol. 3 (Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1954) pp.26-27, 31. (CHL)
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