. . . Those Perkinses and John Evans left Wales in June 1867. On the ship Ben Perkins was one of the few who was able to keep his head up and care for people who were sick.

"We were on the ship on the fourth of July, and my crowd had fiddles and acordians. That afternoon the captain had a big dinner and I and my crew ate dinner with them. The captain played and sang a good many songs that afternoon.

Most of the time while we were on shipboard, my brother Joe, John Evans and I had our hands full caring for about twenty-five widows and young girls who were seasick and some of them totally helpless for days. It was a delicate task for young men. Our two sisters were of but little help for they too were quite sick for sometime.

Our time on the sea was not altogether unpleasant; we spent many hours watching the fish at play as they leaped out of the water."

We are not told how long they were on the water nor the date of their landing, but they seem to have come in a sailing vessel, which perhaps means that they spent from four to six weeks on the water.

"When we landed at Castle Garden the officer searched our luggage and gave us American coin for our foreign money. We were delayed there a day or two before we took the train."

In their company which boarded the train for the West at Williamsburg, New York, there were 270 souls, and they seem to have traveled by train to Laramie City, which place they left with ox teams on the [p.4] first of August.

"As we traveled through the States people would come to meet us wherever we stopped, and they would try to persuade us not to come to Utah, telling us the people in Utah were a bad lot. I told them I was acquainted with quite a few of the people there, and I could not see how they could have gone from good to bad in such a short time, anyway I was going on and see for myself.

On the train we got acquainted with quite a number of Welsh people, and some of them expressed their regrets that we were going to Utah to live among the terrible Mormons.

Before we got off the train we got a sight of the emigration teams waiting there for us. Four or five hundred people were gathered around the camp indulging in a rough and rather uncouth dance. There were no ladies participating, however, it was only a stag dance of the teamsters.

The language they used was very astonishing to us from the old country where we expected to find the people of Zion almost perfect. If such language had been used by the church members in Wales, they would have been required to ask the pardon of the other members. But we soon became acquainted with their ways and shortly became one with them.

We started on West with the teams next morning. . . ." [p.5]

. . . This company from Laramie City to Echo Canyon was under the direction of President William S. Seeley. There were thirty-nine wagons and 272 souls, though four of them died on the trip. . . . [p.7] [NO MENTION OF DATE OF ARRIVAL INTO SLC.]

BIB: Lyman, Albert Robison. An appreciation and a biographical sketch of Benjamin Perkins, 1936 (Ms 4543 3), pp. 4-5, 7. (CHL)
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