On the seventh day of October, 1842, I left my wife and family, two sons and one daughter, in Doncaster and went to Liverpool about two weeks and on the twentieth day of October, I went on board the ship Emerald. Captain Leighton was master of the ship and Brother Parley P. Pratt was president of the company of Saints. His family was along with him. He was returning from his first mission to that land to the bosom of the Church at Nauvoo. We moved out of dock that day and lay in the river four or five days and then set sail with a headwind but towards evening the captain had to hoist a signal for a pilot boat and we returned and lay at anchor four days and then put to sea again with a headwind. We had band weather for some two weeks and many were sick. After this, had a chance of pleasant weather all the way except one night in the Gulf of Mexico, but no accident of importance. I believe we had four deaths and two births. Our company numbered about two hundred and fifty souls. After a long and tedious journey, we arrived in New Orleans on the twenty-sixth day of December, 1842.

We stopped in New Orleans about five days and on the first day of January, 1843, we left port on the steamboat for St. Louis and arrived there on the morning of the eighth. I found my sister's house about eight o'clock in the morning and was received kindly by her and her husband. His name was John M. Parker. They were members of the Wesleyan Methodist Connection. When they found I was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, they tried their best by every means to persuade me to give up my faith in the doctrine and join some of the popular sects of the day. In turn, I preached the gospel to them and bore a faithful testimony to the truth of Joseph Smith being a Prophet of the Lord, but they could not believe. On the first day April following, I left St. Louis on board the steam boat "Maid of Iowa" for Nauvoo. Owing to a great flow of ice down the river, we were detained, but arrived all safe at Nauvoo on the twelfth day of April. . . . [p.496]

BIB: Wrigley, Thomas. [Autobiography], Our Pioneer Heritage, comp. by Kate B. Carter, vol. 5 (Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1962) p. 496. (CHL)
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