. . . [1849] I continued in my feeble way to do the best that I could to help along the great Latter-day kingdom that the Lord had established and as one of the fundamental principles of the gospel is that as the Lord promised to the Father that in the Latter-days that he would gather all things in Christ Jesus, whether they be things in heaven or things in earth. This principal having been so plainly revealed, the churches in Kingdom of England could not afford to pass it by, so the Saints in Great Britain in the above year began to gather to the Great Salt Lake in Utah T. in North America in [UNCLEAR, POSSIBLY clouds] so as a matter of course, I could, neither did desire to resist this command, so I began to make my arrangements to emigrate and in the course of time I had completed my arrangements, and after duly warning the people, the time arrived in the year.

[1850] Early in the year we that [is] me and my little family left our home and native town for New Orleans by the way of Liverpool, our destination Salt Lake City, Utah. The ship was a sailing vessel. We were eight weeks between Liverpool and New Orleans. Nothing of importance occurred in our ocean passage until near New Orleans; our captain had lost his reckoning and in the evening of one stormy day some of our people was on the poop deck all of a sudden something like a large ball of fire seemed to fall from the clouds and as some of our passengers eyes followed the ball of fire until it fell and that ball of fire showed the our passengers the land; [UNCLEAR] had it not been for that circumstance we must have ran onto the shore as the ship was standing head on to the land. As we had nearly one thousand souls on board [p.26] of that gallant ship who's name was the Argo, had we not seen the land by that light; who could the fate of thousand souls [UNCLEAR] in a few minutes more of time for the captain directly ordered the ship to put about and as the ship swing around I then thought I could have thrown a stone from off the ship onto shore and I could plainly see the terrible white breakers on the shore although it was a dark night. So God be all of the praise for this great salvation and so we soon arrived at New Orleans and from there we took the grand steamer named the John Simonds. Twelve hundred miles to St. Louis and due time we arrived in city in fair health. I did not do [-] in the above city as I had only one pound sterling a little less then five dollars. So as a matter of course it was utterly impossible for me to think of going to the city of Salt Lake. So I began to look around to see what I could do so that I could make bread and butter to sustain my family until I could save so much so that in time I could reach the above place of my destination. But in those days the city was only quite young and it was afflicted with almost all kinds of sickness; some of those were fevers and cholera in their worst forms and in those times and in fact I was never so robust as some men but now that I had to live in an unhealthy city and in order to obtain a respectable living for my family I undertook to do anything that I could find to do. So one day as I was on one of the streets looking out for something to do I saw a master builder commencing the tearing down some buildings and arranging to build larger and better buildings in their place and those improvements was near the southwest corner of Fourth and Washington Avenue, so I went up to the master builder and asked him to give [me] something to do on the work so he looked at me a little and then said he to me, "you do not look able to do such work,." but I told him that if he would employ me [p.27] that I would show him that I was able to do as much real hard work as anyone as a matter of course. He had read me to some extent correctly. I was rather slightly constituted and besides I had not been used to work out of doors but had been used to work in the woolen works, but then I was a stranger and in a strange place and I had a wife and two children and I could not think of such a thing that should want any comfort if could help it, and besides that I did not want to stay in that city any more then one year. So all of those things put together, and then besides that I was a young man, so I felt determined to nerve my self to the hardest kind of labor as I could not find anything else to do . So the above man put me to work pulling down buildings and after that was done he sent me to clean the bricks and as I said that I had never done other than worked in the woolen work, as a matter of course my hands was not hard enough to work in bricks and mortar. If I had been otherwise strong enough to do such hard work and as I have said St. Louis in those days was a very unhealthy city and what with the sickly climate and an usually hard work it soon told fearfully upon my already slight constitution. But although the rough bricks and the dry hard mortar cut holes in my hands and the dry mortar had worked into the large sore that the bricks and mortar had made and then my sore and bleeding began to fester, still I stuck to my work and I kept on and put in full time and the master builder as he would come around he never found me killing away my time. And as an a evidence of his approval we had quite a lot of men engaged on the work, some of them whole and partly Irish men, able if they were so disposed to do double the work that I could get. He as the work closed up, he paid off one after another until he had [paid] off all but me and he kept me on until the last to finish up all of the [p.28] little and last chores and after everything was done at the buildings he had me to go to his office and clean it up and seemed loathe to let me go. I will here say that the buildings that we had just finished belonged to a widow lady and as she used to come around she seemed to take considerable interest in me and after I had got through with Mr. Pond, for such was the name of the name of the master builder, I did some work for her, but by this time my health became very much deranged and not only was my hands swollen being festered casually, the mortar getting into the sores caused by handling the bricks but I had contracted one of the worst forms of bilious fever. So I was a complete and only a wreck of my former self; so just what to do, I did not know what to do. I had yet been able to save any means and I was not able only to get out onto the streets and what to do I could not tell so I finally determined to leave Missouri as there was [not] at that time any woolen manufacturing at time. For I thought that if could get some work at the business to do and that indoors I might yet be able to achieve my great desire to save a sufficient so as to be able soon to go to Salt Lake City, so I sold a few things so as to pay my way to the Eastern States and as soon as I had recovered a little I and my wife and little family started for Philadelphia. . . .[p.29]

[BROTHER DUNFORD'S HEALTH CONTINUED TO DECLINE AND EVENTUALLY HE WAS CONSIGNED TO RETURN TO ENGLAND WITH HIS FAMILY. THERE HE FOUND EMPLOYMENT WHICH ENABLED HIM TO RETURN WITH HIS FAMILY TO AMERICA, ABOARD THAT SHIP "JERSEY" IN 1853. HE FINALLY ARRIVED IN SALT LAKE CITY IN SEPTEMBER OF 1854.]

BIB: Dunford, George. Reminiscences and journal (Ms 1722), pp. 26-29. (CHL)
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