. . . We took passage on the sailing ship Essex and on the 9th of October we went aboard, the only Mormon family on the boat, most of the passengers were Catholics, presided over by a priest. I preached three times by request and permission of the captain. We were nine weeks crossing the ocean, reaching New Orleans early in December. Here we took passage on the steamer "Timour" and in coming up the Mississippi we ran against a snag which tore away our provision house and otherwise disabled her, which required the aid of another steamer to tow us to Memphis. Here we were detained several days for repairs, and while here our second child died, one having died and was buried in the ocean, having only lived a half hour after birth.

We reached St. Louis, Missouri, Jan. 1, 1852, with six children, as strangers in a strange country and not means enough to pay for the first month's rent of one room. I parted with a double barrel shot gun for money enough to pay the rent. I sustained my family through the winter by peddling a few articles that I had brought from England. In February another child 4 years old died. There was a branch of the Church in St. Louis and I attended the meetings regularly. The Lord blessed me in my labors, and on one occasion, calling at a large establishment to try and dispose of some small articles to them, the proprietor who had once been an agent for an English Needle Manufacturer, pressed me to purchase his stock on had which consisted of a great many thousands needles, for which I paid him in Damask Bed curtains.

Early in May we left St. Louis for Kanesville, the great outfitting place for the California Emigration. At this place I was able to sell enough needles, goggles and other articles needed by the emigrants to purchase an outfit for our won emigration across the plains to Utah. It consisted of 2 yoke of oxen, 2 yoke of cows, one wagon and provisions. We crossed the Missouri river on the 9th of June, 1852 in the 5th company of Latter-day Saints under Captain Tidwell. Before reaching the buffalo country two more [p.174] of our children died from cholera, making five having died since we left our native country in nine months' time. We arrived in S alt lake on the 15th of September, 1852. . . . [p.175]

BIB: Goddard, George, [Autobiography], Our Pioneer Heritage, comp. by Kate B. Carter, vol. 17 (Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1974). pp. 174-75. (CHL)
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