Sunday, October 19, 1862.... Went up to the Bowery.... At the close of the meeting, 250 men were called to go to the cotton country. My name was on the list and was read off the stand. At night I went to a meeting in the Tabernacle of those who had been called. Here I learned a principle that I shan’t forget in a while. It showed me that obedience is a great principle in Heaven and on earth. Well, here I have worked for the last seven years, through heat and cold, hunger and adverse circumstances, and at last have a home and a lot with fruit trees just beginning to bear and look pretty. Well, I must leave it and go and do the will of my Father in Heaven ... and I pray God to give me strength to accomplish that which is required of me. Monday, October 20, to Wednesday, October 22. Not very well. Working around the home and fixing to dispose of my property.[51] The spirit of “moving south” had been encouraged by the previous year’s migration and many had become interested, some because of friends or relatives who had preceded them, others because of crop losses or because they were seeking better places to locate. John Langston, who came to Rockville at this time, says in his journal that he had tired of having his crops eaten up by crickets at Alpine, Utah County, so tried farming at Draper. His crops in 1862 were destroyed by flooding of the Jordan River, so he volunteered and was “called” on the mission to settle Dixie.[52] These recruits enlarged the settlements even to overcrowding. Rockville suddenly expanded by the abandonment of Adventure and the influx of new settlers to a town of nearly thirty families.[53] Shunesburg increased to fifteen or sixteen and the others in proportion.[54] The townsite and fields of early Springdale were surveyed during the fall and winter of 1862-63, and a town of some twenty families was established, with Albert Petty as presiding elder.[55] With crowded conditions and scanty food supplies, many became discouraged and some left Dixie. Most, however, proved faithful to the “call” and remained to make the settlements permanent. The settlements were still in a precarious state, the pioneers moving from place to place attempting to find suitable locations, some leaving and others coming, when, in 1864, a church census enumerated 765 persons (129 families), distributed along the upper Virgin River as follows: Families People Virgin City 56 336 Duncan’s Retreat 8 50 Grafton 28 168 Rockville 18 95 Northrop 3 17 Shunesburg 7 45 Springdale 9 54 129 765