After three severe experiences in establishing settlements in Missouri and Illinois, they determined in their councils to emigrate farther west and start a colony which would be composed of Latter Day Saints, where they would be entirely distinct and separate from any antagonizing elements. At that time Salt Lake Valley, being under Spanish dominion and a thousand miles from any white settlement, was ultimately chosen as the spot best suited for their purpose. After leaving Nauvoo, Ill., they went to Council Bluffs, Iowa (called by them Kaneville), traveling through the State of Iowa, and undergoing the greatest hardships and sufferings any people were ever called upon to endure, being without money, some of them without the proper means of transportation, destitute of almost all the necessities of life, and a great many sick on account of exposure to the elements. Arriving at the place above named, on the Missouri River, they went into winter quarters, and the next spring planted and raised crops in that vicinity, the greater number of the emigrants remaining there for the next two years. In the spring of 1847, at the time war was being carried on between the United States and Mexico, Brigham Young started west with a band of from seventy to seventy-five pioneers, having, I believe, an impression that in Salt Lake Valley might be found the Mecca of their hopes. They arrived in Salt Lake Valley on the 21st day of July of that year. Previous to this, in 1846, at the call of the President for troops for the Mexican War, Brigham Young raised a regiment of a thousand volunteers to go to Mexico, under a stipulation with the United States Government that, when the war was over, the survivors should receive their discharges in California. This agreement was made in view of the fact that they had already resolved to go west into Spanish territory. The treaty of peace between the United States and Old Mexico, at the close of the war, resulted in the Government of Mexico giving up to the United States all the territory possessed by it lying north of the present boundary line between the two countries, so that, after all the exertions the Mormons had made to effect a settlement on Spanish territory, in less than a year they found themselves still in the United States, where they have ever since remained, having built cities and towns on the colonizing plan in every available portion of the Territory of Utah, and having quite a number of colonies in other Territories, with one at present established in Mexico, as I have lately been informed.