"We have had much affliction 'tis true more than I can describe but after all I do not know that I ever heard one word of murmuring in all our afflictions. . . ."¹

Thus wrote John Moon to his friends and family still in England on July 22, 1840, shortly after he and 41 other members of the Church, more than half of them members of the Moon family, landed safe and sound on the shores of America.

Sailing ship typically used to cross the Atlantic by Latter-day Saint emigrant companies.

This was the first British Latter-day Saint emigrant company and it had been a long and difficult voyage, especially for these simple members who had never before been on the high seas. With the ship driven only by its huge expanse of sail pitched to the wind, the skill of the Britannia's captain pitted against the elements finally brought the ship across the waves of the Atlantic Ocean to the safe harbor of New York.

A voyage of 44 days at the mercy of wind and wave was an ordeal for many of these new converts. "I never saw such a day in all my days," recounted John Moon, president of the company. "Some crying, some vomiting; pots, pans, tins and boxes walking in all directions; the ship heaving the sea roaring and so we passed that day."

Sickness, poor food and the cramped conditions of their berths in the ship's hold led John Moon, to write that he felt "sorry for all those who have to come after us but keep up your hearts and as your day is so shall your strength be. You must expect great tribulation in the way to Zion."²

This first trickle of what would become a virtual torrent of emigrating saints crossing the seas to America began in 1840. The first mission in 1837-38, under the leadership of Heber C. Kimball, had given no instructions about emigration to the some 1,600 converts. But with the advent of the apostolic mission to the British Isles the brethren began to actively encourage the members to gather to Zion. Before the end of the century, some 45,000 new converts from Britain and Scandinavia emigrated. Most of the British converts would emigrate, so much so that for some 50 years the Church membership was predominately British.

The period from 1830 onwards saw a huge emigration movement in Britain, of which members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were only a small but nonetheless significant part. Over nine million Britons emigrated from Liverpool alone. Posters everywhere promised land and opportunity aplenty in the "new" lands of New Zealand, Australia, Canada and America. Ireland and the Scottish highlands and islands were cleared as landowners realized sheep brought greater income than impoverished crofters. Irish and Scots were deported wholesale. Many of the working classes of industrial England had been drawn to the towns by the promise of work, but were now enslaved to the might of the industrial machines running night and day in the factories. Men, women, and children as young as six, were being slowly worked to death in the huge mills, labouring six days a week in return for a starvation pittance of a wage.

Emigration, therefore, seemed an attractive opportunity for many and commercial enterprise provided the means of escape with fast new cutters designed with the object of transporting as many as possible as cheaply as possible.

Before laws were eventually enacted to control the scandalous conditions, men and women were lodged together indiscriminately in the dark steerage between decks. Cramped three-tiered berths, six-feet-by-six-feet with four people to a hard bed of bare boards, were the norm. Initially, passengers had to bring their own food for the typical voyage of 34 days.

Courtesy David M.W. Pickup

Nineteenth-century engraving illustrates era of emigration.

The traumatic experiences on board the Britannia were but a foretaste for many of those who were to follow. The saints found conditions on board harsher than the humble English homes they had recently vacated. They were obliged to sleep on bare boards or boxes rather than feather mattresses. Crammed together so that they scarce had room to move about, they suffered alternately from suffocating heat or freezing cold. There was no opportunity to dry or change clothes wet through from heavy seas. In the second Church emigrant company of September 1840, for example, 14 passengers, including William Clayton, convert and former member of the British Mission Presidency, were restricted to a tiny cabin on board the North America.

The faith of these early saints sustained them through all these hardships and inconveniences, as demonstrated by the touching letter William Clayton sent on arrival in New York to the members and friends he had left behind in England: "At the time I left you I knew little of the toils and difficulties of travelling neither could I if any one had told me. We have had some hard times, and been exposed to trouble of various kinds. I once could not have believed that it was possible for me to endure the toils I have endured; but to the praise of God be it spoken, all I have endured has never hurt or discouraged me, but done me good. . . . "³

Before long, the Church in Britain established a system of emigration, chartering its own ships, for the huge numbers desirous to emigrate. Leaders saw to it that the provisions for the voyage were ample, and established companies of emigrants presided over by priesthood brethren to see that all was kept in decent order. Emigration funds were collected weekly in the branches along with tithing. Later, Brigham Young established the Perpetual Emigration Fund whereby those without means could join the saints in America, with the monies expended to be repaid once settled in Zion.

When Apostles Brigham Young, Wilford Woodruff and George A. Smith returned from their mission to England in April 1841, they took passage with a company of 130 saints on board the Rochester.

Fellow-passenger and member Thomas Quayle wrote: "It was on that ship I first saw Brigham Young. He used to come through the crowded mass of people in the hold speaking kindly and fatherly to us. . . . Most of the time during that journey he spent preaching to us. . . ."⁴

Thomas Quayle recalled that most of the passengers were sick during the voyage. He wrote: "Mother was so ill that she had to be moved from the steerage to a small cabin on deck and, although she did not retain the little food she tried to eat, she survived the journey. Little baby Joseph died in Brother John's arms."

Notwithstanding the efforts of Church leaders, the Atlantic crossing remained a trial of faith for even the best of members. Welsh convert Captain Dan Jones later produced a Guide to Zion for emigrants in which he advised "— do not worry about dying from sea sickness, unless you feed it to a fever by staying in bed, which turns it fatal to many; but strive to eat healthful food, and stay on the deck to breath pure air as long as you can; this is the best medicine of all, long and frequent experience tells us."⁵

Death remained a frequent occurrence as those weakened by seasickness fell prey to more dangerous illness. Barely a voyage passed without several deaths. Emigrant journals frequently and poignantly record the fortitude and faith with which the emigrant saints met the death of a child, mother or father.

On the Clara Wheeler, sailing from Liverpool in 1854, 22 children died from an outbreak of measles. Some survived the crossing, only to succumb to other illness before reaching their overland destination. William Brighton took his family of wife and two children on this voyage and recorded:

"Tuesday 28 Nov. 1854. I and wife very sick and not able to get out of bed. The day was very stormy and the sea rough. We continued sick all night.

"Thursday 7 Dec. 1854. . . . I and wife was sick and could do nothing for our children. On Sunday the 10 I got a little better and was able to go on deck but could eat no meat. . . . My children has been very badly for a few days with sickness and a burning skin when on Sunday the 17 measles made appearance on Janet and is now lying very bad. I do not know as yet what is wrong with Mary only she is lying very bad. During my sickness there was 4 children and 2 women died. . . . A woman died next berth to us with fever. I now feel thankful to God that I am again able to look after my wife and children

"Tuesday 19 Dec. 1854. The ordinance was administered to my wife and children. The measles made their appearance on Mary this day and I was kept so busy attending my wife and children up to the 31 Dec. 1854 that I could not take an observation of our travels when at 1/2 1 o'clock on the 31st, my child, Mary departed this life, and Brother Gibson's child, Elisabeth, died 1/4 11 o'clock on the 29 and both the children was sewed up in a bag and let into the sea at 1/2 2 o'clock. A very little after they died I may say that no one could know my feelings upon that occasion except a father. When I looked on the little ones laid side by side and then sewed up in a bag to be put in the sea . . . my heart was pained to see them thrown in the sea though I looked forward to a day when the sea will give up its dead. My wife was very bad at the time and continued very bad and weak for the want of food . . . but she has got over it and is now getting strong again and my daughter, Janet, is now very well and I rejoice in the goodness of the Lord to me and family while there has been a great deal of death on board the ship. . . . "⁶

Emigration from England and Scandinavia was something of a mixed blessing. Although able to escape the repressing conditions of their native countries, the saints anxious to gather to Zion were not blind to the risks they faced for their faith. The voyage was itself hazardous by contemporary standards and conditions unthinkable by those of today. Numbers died en route from sickness and infection from fellow passengers. Once arrived in New York or New Orleans, the dangers were hardly over. The long river navigation by steamboats was no less hazardous. Ahead still lay the arduous crossing of the plains to the Salt Lake Valley. It has been estimated that between 1846 and 1869, 4,600 Latter-day Saint pioneers perished along the Mormon Trail.⁷

That these saints, principally from Britain and Scandinavia, were prepared to risk all to respond to the call from the prophet to gather to Zion is a tribute to their remarkable courage, a trial of faith and loyalty to the cause that few today are called to endure.

Endnotes

1. Letter from John Moon, 22nd July 1840, cited in Mormon Immigration Index, Family History Resource File, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

2. Letter from John Moon, cited, ibid.

3. Letter from William Clayton, 10th December 1840, cited, ibid.

4. Autobiography of Thomas Quayle, cited, ibid.

5. "Guide to Zion," by Captain Dan Jones.

6. Diary of William Stuart Brighton, cited in Mormon Immigration Index, Family History Resource File, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

7. Susan Easton Black, "I have a question," Ensign, July 1998.

David M. W. Pickup of the Burnley Ward, Preston England Stake is the author of The Pick and Flower of England, a book about the saints in England from 1837 into the early years of emigration. The emigration chapter of this book is available as a free download PDF file through the Sea Trek website, www.Seatrek2001.com, under the historical background section. Email: David@pickup.worldonline.co.uk