page_0002

God." We had a peg driven down,
and it was nearly in the middle of the
Temple as it stands to-day, which
Temple was built without any regard
to the spot designated by President
Young at the time. On the 26th we
went to the top of a high point on the
north of the city, which President
Young named "Ensign Peak." We
also visited the Hot and Warm
Springs. On the 27th we drove to
the West Mountains, and visited the
Salt Lake, President Young being the
first man to dip his hand into the
briny water. We walked dryshod to
the Black Rock and took a bath in
the lake. Afterwards preparations
were made for laying out the city, and
I with other brethren, assisted Presi-
dent Young in laying out the ground
and streets with chain and compass.
He laid out a block of ten acres upon
which to build a Temple, and city
lots of one acre and a quarter, and
streets eight rods wide, all of which
have been published by historians.
President Young left Winter Quarters
on the 7th day of April, accompanied
by seven other apostles and other men
all told 143 men and three women.
The apostles were Brigham Young,
Heber C. Kimball, Wilford Woodruff,
Geo. A. Smith, Willard Richards,
Orson Pratt, Amasa Lyman, and Ezra
T. Benson. Parley P. Pratt and John
Taylor arrived soon after, leading
companies of families. Orson Hyde
remained at Kanesville. We traveled
the first 500 miles without any grass.
With the exception of the little grain
we fed our animals, they lived entirely
on the bark of cottonwood limbs and
saplings which they knawed from the
cottonwood we would lay before them
for their night's meal. This company
of 143 men traveled 1,000 miles,
making their roads and building their
bridges. In one instance we had to
form a guard of a wedge shape for
three days and nights to keep our
company from being trampled to
death by an enormous herd of buffalo
that had gathered from the mountains
and were migrating in a solid body to
the plains below. The herd was judged
to be sixty miles in length, and
numbered not less than one million.
They were traveling east, and we were
traveling west. We were three days
passing through the herd, and we all
breathed freer when we were clear of
them. No other class of men will
ever witness the same scene again
upon the face of the earth. Brother
Wm. C. A. Smoot, sen., got his horses
loose and mixed with the herd, and it
was with great difficulty that we ob-
tained them again.

Notwithstanding our first care was
to secure an abiding place, a home for
the people, we did not lose sight of
other important matters. President
Young contemplated at that early day
the building of a railroad across the
continent, and we marked out the
route which we thought the national
road would take to unite the Atlantic
and Pacific Oceans.

Brothers Orson Pratt and Erastus
Snow entered the valley two or three
days before the body of the pioneers;
but where are those men to-day, and
where is President Brigham Young
and the apostles who accompanied
him? All are in the spirit world,
mingling with the martyred prophets,
where they can plead for their breth-
ren. Not one of them living to-day
except myself, and but few of the
pioneers remain. We have buried a
whole quorum of twelve apostles since
we entered these valleys of the moun-
tains. The remnant of Zion's Camp,
Mormon Battalion, and the pioneers,
number but very few to-day. Those
of us who remain will soon pass away,
but our posterity lives and are num-
bered in the Primaries, the Sabbath
Schools, and the Mutual Improve-
ment Associations, and are this day
assembled in this great Tabernacle to
celebrate the arrival of the pioneers
into this great American desert, which
to-day, through the blessing of God
and labor of the pioneers, is blossom-
ing as the rose.

This company of pioneers spent about
a month in this valley, during which
period we erected what is known as
the Old Fort, surrounding three sides
of the ten-acre block with an adobe
wall on the outside, and the east side
with log cabins. We also arranged for
this fort to have four entrances, one
on each point of the compass.

Most of the pioneers returned to
Winter Quarters, where they reached
in the fall, making a journey of over