The first Mormons to enter Mexico were the soldiers of the Mormon Battalion who, in 1846, passed south of the Gila in Mexican territory, and then entered the present Mexico by a swing of the column southward from the San Bernardino ranch around to the valley of the San Pedro. The D.W. Jones party was the first missionary expedition into Mexico, crossing the Rio Grande at Paso del Norte, the present Juarez, January 7, 1876. The Pratt-Stewart party, including Meliton G. Trejo, was in northern Mexico early in '77, and small missionary parties followed thereafter from time to time. November 15, 1879, Apostle Moses Thatcher was in Mexico City with J.Z. Stewart and Trejo, there founding the first organization of the Church within the Republic. Decided impetus was given the southward movement when it became evident that the national prosecution against plural marriage was to be pushed to the extreme. January 4, 1883, with the idea of finding an asylum for the Saints in Mexico, Apostle Thatcher traveled from St. David on the San Pedro, to the southeast as far as Corralitos, where some arrangement was made for lands. In the following September, another party from St. David explored the country along the Babispe River. Still more important, November 2, 1884, Apostles Brigham Young, Jr., and Heber J. Grant investigated the Yaqui River section of Sonora, this with three companies of prospective settlers from the Salt River, Gila and San Pedro Valleys, together with some additions from Salt Lake. In January, 1885, migration was under personal charge of President John Taylor, who, after a notable conference at St. David, as noted in the history of that section, led a party southward into Sonora and held a satisfactory conference with Governor Torres, yet made no settlement. In the same month, however, notation has been found that Alexander F. Macdonald was at Corralitos, Chihuahua, from Mesa. A few parties were in that locality in February, 1885, one expedition of seventy having come from Arizona, under Captain Noble. Something of a setback was known when, on April 9, 1885, the Governor of Chihuahua ordered departure of all Mormon settlers within his State. Apostles Young and Thatcher, May 18, visited the City of Mexico and secured from the federal government permission for the immigrants to remain. Colonization in Chihuahua