In the spring of 1849 he caught the gold fever, and arranged to go to California with a man named Bennett, who with his wife and two children was about to go there. Through a misunderstanding as to the time of starting, the Bennetts started two weeks before Manley knew that they had gone. They had taken his outfit with them, thinking that he would overtake them. This he tried to do, but did not find them for many months after, when he accidentally met them at Salt Lake City. At Council Bluffs, he found himself with nothing but the clothes he wore, an extra shirt, a light gun, a small light tent, a frying-pan, a tin cup, his mules, but no money. He had come to the conclusion to return to Michigan, when he met a man named Charles Dallas, from Iowa, who was preparing to join a train of wagons bound for California. Dallas offered to feed Manley if he would drive one of his teams clear through; this he very reluctantly agreed to do. The train was made up of a number of ox teams; the one Manley drove consisted of two oxen and two cows. After much hardship and many hair-breadth escapes, they reached a point near the Mormon settlement at Salt Lake City, where they found a band of emigrants, camped among them being Manley’s friends, the Bennetts, from whom he received his complete outfit just as he had left it with them months before in Wisconsin. He at once decided to join the Bennetts, and as Mr. Dallas had decided to stay at Salt Lake City until spring, he had no compunction in doing so. This other train consisted of one hundred and seven wagons, with about 500 horses and cattle. The company had a semblance of military organization, being made up of seven divisions, each having its own captain, whom they elected; one Captain Hunt was engaged to act as guide and commander (he called himself Dictator), acting under rules that had been framed by the whole body. These rules, it was understood, could be amended by a majority of the whole; each member was to pay Captain Hunt ten dollars for acting as their pilot. Hunt was a Mormon, and pretended to know the best routes to California. It was planned that they should move with military precision, division number one taking the lead the first day, division number two the second day, and so on in regular routine. The route chosen was a new one for a wagon train, though there was a trail over which the Mormons traveled to their settlement or colony at San Bernardino, located about sixty miles east of Los Angeles.