Leaving Edinburgh the company returned to Liverpool where a conference was held on the 30th of March, 1845. At this conference {240} there were present four high priests, eighteen elders, thirteen priests, and eight teachers. It consisted of twelve branches with a membership of 676 souls. Liverpool was then, as it has ever since been, the headquarters of the Church in Great Britain. Preparations were made at the Liverpool conference for the general conference of the British Mission to be held April 6th in Manchester. The meetings there convened in Science Hall. It was the largest conference up to that time ever held in the British Mission. This mission at that time contained many of the finest characters ever known in the Church. The men who embraced the gospel, as a whole, in those days were strong characters whose endurance and whose will power peculiarly fitted them for the pioneer work they were soon to undertake in the development of this inter-mountain region. Upon his return to Liverpool, Elder Woodruff sent the following epitaph to Elder E. F. Sheets to be placed upon the tombstone of Elder Lorenzo D. Barnes: "In memory of Lorenzo D. Barnes, who died on the 20th of December, 1842, aged thirty years. He was a native of the United States, an elder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a member of the high priests' quorum and also Zion's Camp in A. D. 1834, and the first gospel messenger from Nauvoo who has found a grave in a foreign land. "Sleep on, Lorenzo, but ere long from this The conquered tomb shall yield her captured prey. Then with thy Quorum shalt thou reign in bliss As king and priest for an Eternal Day." The latter part of April he paid a visit to Newton where he examined the great vitriol works which are among the largest in the world. He also went through the great engine factory at that place where a number of the brethren were working. They were men well qualified to carry on the work in all its branches. He relates the circumstances of a peculiar tradition of a church in the vicinity of the city: "From the Newton Engine Factory I walked several miles through very pleasant scenery consisting of green fields, hedges, trees, and gardens. I visited a church {241} on the side of which was the figure of a pig in stone, and a stone was hung around its neck. According to tradition the materials for this church were drawn to another place quite a distance from where the church now stands. The pig came along and took a stone in his mouth and carried it, squealing as he went. The pig finally dropped the stone on the spot where the church now stands. The circumstance the people regarded as an omen and erected their church on its present site."