The World of Joseph Fielding: Chapter 28
The World of Joseph Fielding: Chapter 28 The Saints Head West After President Young left the temple in February, 1846, he “addressed the saints in the grove and informed them that the company going to the west would start this week across the river.” Following the meeting, John Smith, Joseph and Hyrum’s uncle and the Nauvoo stake president, crossed the river with his family. His son, Apostle George A. Smith, During the winter of 1846, the Mississippi River froze, also crossed, as did others. which greatly expedited the evacuation. Thomas Grover, a member of the Nauvoo high council, crossed the river the next day with his large family, Monday the 9th of February, with some difficulty. During an accident with a barge, two oxen drowned, but otherwise those crossing were pulled to safety.1 John Taylor stated that the decision for so many leaders of the Church to leave Nauvoo in February was intended to quell the rumors by their enemies that the saints were going to stay put. He wrote that on the 11th of February, “a large company, four hundred families all told, including nearly all the leaders of the Church,” crossed “the Mississippi on the ice. He continued: The exodus was not commenced so early, and at such an inclement season of the year because there was anything in the treaty the Saints had entered into that demanded it, but the movement was made to give proof that it was their intention to leave, and to take away from the mob all excuse for violence or bloodshed.
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