My brother and his wife sailed for Philadelphia on the twentieth of August 1847, leaving me to do the best I could for myself. In two weeks I had made sufficient means to pay for passage for two persons to New Orleans. I then applied to George Hewitt and his wife Jane for their daughter Malinda Jane (Hewitt) for a wife. They both gave their consent and also their daughter. We were married at Saint Luke's Church in Liverpool, top of Bald Street, on the twenty-ninth day of August 1847 between nine and ten a.m.

I then paid passage for New Orleans to sail on the Charlemagne, to sail on the first of September, but she did not sail until the eleventh of September. On the eleventh we sailed out of dock and stayed anchored in the river until six o'clock on Monday morning. Then the tug boat came and hitched on and took us out to sea. Had head winds for ten days. After we had good winds until we landed.

We sailed up the Mississippi River, crossing the bars about six o'clock in the evening of Saturday, running up the river with the help of any steamer landing at the lower cotton press at about ten o'clock on Sunday morning the fifth of November 1847. We landed with six pence after paying half a crown for our luggage, hauled to a house we had rented, and paying a half a crown to the custom house officer.

The first mate of the vessel asked me if I wanted any money. I told him of my circumstances and he gave me three dollars, telling me if I made anything before the vessel sailed back, I could pay him back, but if not I could keep it. I thanked him and acknowledged the hand of God in it.

After being three days in New Orleans I could not find anybody that I knew. I saw on a horning post a care with direction to an intelligence officer. I immediately applied. He then told me of many situations, such as opening oysters, waiting at a bar etc., but it did not meet my mind, so I refused. He then told me to come again in the morning, so I went.

He then asked me if I could not paint. I told him that was not by business but I was willing to try. He told me to say that I had earned my time as an apprentice. He then took me to a paint shop carried on by a man by the name of [-] from Manchester. He asked me many questions. I told him I had worked at Thomas Hayles and Sons for thirteen years, which I had, and a part of the time at painting, but had not served a regular apprenticeship. He told me that I could go to work and he would pay me what I was worth.

I then went to work for him and on Saturday night he asked me what would satisfy me for wages. I told him I would leave it to himself.

He then asked the foreman, but he could not say as he had not noticed, which was the case. The master then said that all the old country workmen were not worth as much as those who have been in this country for some time, as we worked slower and did not understand the mode of working, so if I was satisfied, he would give me a guinea, which was five dollars, for my three days work, so I of course accepted it and thanked him kindly. I felt God had been with me and was helping me. I worked for him until March. He gave me two-and-one-half dollars per week for the last two months. When I was leaving, he offered me three dollars per week if I would stay through the summer. When I got on a boat for Saint Louis he gave me a good recommend to Mr. Burry, who kept a [p.2] paint shop in Saint Louis. He also gave me two bottles of porter and some other little notions.

I arrived in Saint Louis the middle of April. Work was hard to be got. I applied to Mr. Burry and showed him the recommend, but he did not want any more hands at the time.

After renting a house, I applied for a situation as a waiter at the Peoples Garden and got it, getting one-and one-half dollars per night. After being there sometime my brother Shenton and his wife arrived from Philadelphia, his wife being very sick. She died in the same house as we lived in, it being right on the same block, right in the center of the Gardens. She died four days after their arrival, tenth of July 1848.

My brother got work at Mr. Sheffield's Tannery and Curries on the fourth of July 1848. The Garden, or part of the building, was destroyed by fire. I was then receiving sixteen dollars per month and house rent and living free and our provisions. I had charge of the bar and the management of making ice cream and of all the waiters. Through the fire, the Gardens was given up. I then got work at currying at Sheffield's Tannery on Twentieth Street and Morgan Street. I worked there about six months.

Then my brother felt, assumed by his actions, that I should not do so well as him, and he turned the master against me so I left and got work at Mister Blackburns on the prairie at currying, getting two dollars per week more. Stayed two weeks and my brother Shenton told Mr. Blackburn that I had not served my time at the business, but Mr. Blackburn said he had no fault to find with my work. I then thought if working at currying should hurt my brother's feelings, I would try to get work at painting, so applied to Mister Burry for work, reminding him of my recommend from New Orleans. He gave me work and kept me at work steady with the exception of very bad weather through the winter while I stayed in Saint Louis. This would be in 1849.

About twelve days after I had gone to work at painting, my brother left Saint Louis, taking with him the daughter of Mr. Sheffield, contrary to Mr. Sheffield's will or consent, or even his knowledge. My brother about this time seems to be kind of loose and fond of his liquor and women. However, I felt to thank God that I was differently disposed. My brother at this time was owing me about twenty dollars for board and washing.

I kept some of his good socks and bedding. He and a companion came to my house the night before he left and demanded his things, but I refused to let him have them. He came to my house about twelve o'clock at night when I refused he then drew a piston and swore he would shoot me if I resisted him in taking all his things away. He refused to pay me for his board.

I then went out of the house and it seemed that he thought that I had gone to Mr. Sheffield's so he took a few things and left. This happened in October 1848.

On the first of November twenty minutes to nine a.m. my wife delivered a son. I had him named and blessed by the elders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Third Street between Market and Chestnut Street, Saint Louis, Missouri. His name was given thus: William George Barton.

I got nine dollars per week painting. Kept me and my family. In the fall of 1849 Brother Erastus Snow and others came down to Saint Louis from the Valley of Salt Lake City. I bought a span of horses of Erastus Snow. Paid him seventy-five dollars for them. The horses were very poor. I kept them though the winter and fed them well.

In the spring I bought a wagon and started for Kanesville, Iowa, taking with me a female passenger by the name of Smith. She was to pay me fifty dollars and pay for her board.

My wife's father and mother came from England in the spring of 1849, and brother came in the fall of 1848. Her brother stopped with us for a little while as I then went up to the River Mission to work. My mother-in-law died in Saint Louis about six weeks before we left and my father-in-law started up the river a [p.3] few days before we started. His name was George Hewitt and my wife's mother's name was Jane Hewitt. Her maiden name was Pickering. My brother-in-law's name is George Frederick Hewitt.

We traveled by land through Missouri on our way to Salt Lake. Had to buy another horse at Saint Charles. Paid forty dollars for it. Borrowed some money of my's [UNCLEAR] Smith. Got to Kanesville after traveling five weeks over a land route. Found that the team would not take.

The horse I bought at Saint Charles I had to sell on the road before I arrived at Kanesville. Got for it of a saint we found on the road about forty miles below Kanesville, two cows and two calves and a side of bacon and one chicken. Arrived in Kanesville in May 1850. Sold the cows and my horses and wagon and built a log house and commenced painting so that I could make a fit-out for the valley.

On the twelfth of August 1850 about nine or ten in the morning my first son, William George, died of cholera infection, after a sickness of about two months.

His death was very striking and heart rending. He put up his little first fingers to my lips and then move them to his mother's lips for a kiss, and then move them back again, and kept on doing so for about twenty minutes before his spirit departed, looking up to us with a kind of smile until at last a scum came over his eyes. He did not seem to suffer very much. I looked on actions as a token of his wishing his mother and me to have union and keep together.

After our arrival we found that my wife's father had died of cholera three days before our arrival. The Sunday before my child died I went to the burying ground and in helping to dig a grave for a Mrs. Evans I came across my father-in-law's coffin and knew it by the description given me, so in the afternoon of my child's death I made a coffin for him myself, and he was buried the same day.

October the third thirty minutes past twelve noon, 1850 my wife was confined and brought forth a son, we named Ethelbert Hewitt Barton. He was blessed and named by the elders in Kanesville.

Work seemed very full and it was hard getting along. Although I seemed to do better than the other painters, yet it was hard. In the spring of 1851 I agreed with Daniel Grenig, a baker, to go into partnership and put up a bake-oven. I bought a cow of David Candland and had the milk for about three or four months, and then she got in a ditch and got the stogers and died. No much doing no much emigration in the winter of 1851.

I went on the bluffs and cut down oak trees, and split them up, seasoned it as well as I could and made two running gears of wagon, and intended to sell one for the ironing of the other and then try and get off to the Valley of Salt Lake. During the winter I got in debt sixty-three or sixty- four dollars for provisions and clothing, and lived very pool as flour was very dear.

Through the River Missouri being frozen and no boats running, I was accused of shooting a cow belonging to a brother [-], and I did not do it, but no doubt I had hurt it the night before, as it had done me some damage in the winter.

I went down in Mills County and did some painting a large job of plastering for Brother Cooledge, which I got through very well, not letting him know but what plastering was my business, and the Lord seems to help me.

In the early part of spring Brother Ezra T. Benson, one of the Twelve Apostles, and Brother I. C. Little came to may house and wished me to give the two running gears to hem for the benefit of the poor. They said if I would, I should get a way, and the Lord would bless me. I gave them and trusted to God to help me gain means so that I might get to the Valley this year.

About three or four weeks after, I fixed the oxen and commenced preparing for emigration. . . . [p.4]

. . . I traveled sometime alone and sometime with two other wagons that were going to the Valley. One of the wagons was owned by Captain Hawley, a member of the church, the other by a Californian. We traveled in peace. I got there in the Valley on the twentieth of August 1852. Met Brother John Lowe between the Little and Big Mountains. . . . [p.5]

BIB: Barton, William Kilshaw, Autobiography (MOR q M270.1 B286C), pp. 2-5 (Brigham Young University Special Collections).
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