Of Things Also Spiritual
"Mr. Firbank had a contract and was paying good wages. I got
15 shillings a week as long as I worked there. This was in the spring of
1859. I used to go home every night, it only being 2 miles to my work.
My oldest brother, Joseph, was tired of working at his old place and wanted
to know if there was any chance for him to get work where I was. I told
him no, because the work was drawing to a close and I didn't know how soon
I should be discharged. But he soon left Giles Austin and went to work
where he could find it until July, 1859 when five of us started up to Crossley
Green [Croxley Green] to harvest because it was earlier there. We
got a job to cut some winter oats. Before we got the oats cut, another
man came and wanted us to come and gather cherries for him, half a drown
a day. I had been gathering cherries for 3 weeks when a letter from William
Sanders came, that brother that baptised me, to come forthwith to Leighton
Buzzard for he had a good job for me to drive one horse on the railroad.
I received 19 shillings and sixpence a week for very light work. This just
suited me because I could go to the house of a family of Latter-day Saints.
They had moved from Hemel Hempstead Branch where we used to meet and have
a good time together - Thursday evening meetings and all day Sundays. When
this family was called to move to Leighton Buzzard, it thinned out the
Hemel Hempsted Branch. It was called the Cated family - 8 in all, 6 girls.
We used to walk to Eaton Bray Branch on Sunday. I commenced to pay a little
into the emigration fun, but the winter was nigh and Mr. Jay's contract
was nearly completed and I had to leave or go down to Wales to work for
considerable less pay. I concluded to go back to Bovingdon.
[Perhaps now would be a good time to review of John's conversion to
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Says John, "I then went
to work for Mr. Phips, where my brother Edward first heard the sound of
the everlasting gospel, by Henry Groom, who was living at the same place."
He was subsequently baptized into the Church. Edward then talked of the
truth he was convinced of with his brother, John - who listened and believed.
John was baptized in the Boxmoor Bathing place on Sunday - July 5th, 1858,
by Brother William Sanders. This brother was brother in very deed to John
as John's own account relates and John valued both the brotherhood and
his association as the two were often found in the same employ together.
John attended the Hemel Hempstead Branch as well as the Branch at Eaton
Bray and sought out the company of other Latter-day Saints.]
[The two years between the departure of Elder Heber C. Kimball and
his associates in 1838 and the arrival of the nine apostles in 1840 had
been a time of sifting. In the face of persecution and other difficulties,
the weaker members dropped away whilst the stronger ones remained. This
same process continued, perhaps with more intensity, during the 1850s.
Great stress was placed on keeping the commandments and on being a faithful
and active member of the Church - an emphasis that received strong affirmation
from the brethren in America. On 30 October 1856 President Brigham Young
wrote to Elder Orson Pratt (then the British Mission president) instructing
him that this reform movement should also commence in the British Isles.
A comparison of membership, conversion and emigration figures suggests
that many either dropped away and were lost or were formally excommunicated
during that decade. Elder Pratt sadly reported in May 1857 `the Saints
in these lands will not number more than about one half as many as . .
. in 1850.' (Truth Will Prevail, p. 214, 215) ]
[It was in this period of reformation within the Church in England
itself that Edward and John were converted and baptized. The dissolution
of so many seemed to have no effect on their budding testimonies and their
zeal to be numbered among the Saints of the latter days.]
"He (Edward) then left at Michaelmas in the year 18- and hired
out to Mr. George Reave, at Heagvans [Heavans] Gate, as a plowman.
[Heavans Gate Farm is located in Flamstead. Mr. Reeves had a farm of
113 acres and on the 1861 British Census reported employing 8 men and 1
boy.] I recollect to work for two masters at the same time in the winter,
that is, I had taken two jobs of work. I had taken so many acres of stubbing
to do, for one Giles Austin and Mr. Phips sent me the word to come and
take a job of turnip snouting.
[Turnip snouting was pulling up swedes, cutting off the tap-root and
leaves and throwing them into heaps prior to collection for feeding to
cattle. It was a hard and cold job, normally done in bad weather.]
"Both of the farmers were urgent with their work and to keep
on the good side of both, for a few days I worked half a day stubbing and
half a day snouting, until finished and then took another job grubbing
roots until spring.
[Stubbing and grubbing roots would have to do with the clearing of trees,
hedges or derelict orchards.]
In the spring . . . "Edward sent me word that his master, Mr.
George Reave would give me a job, for he wanted someone who could brew
beer and do all kinds of work. My brother Edward told him I was that man.
He was the first farmer to give me equal wages to other men.
"We still kept going to Hemel Hempstead Branch. Once in a while we would
go to Flamstead Branch, as we lived half way between the two branches.
My master was well pleased with me and I worked for him until the harvest.
I then went to work for Thomas Lines in the year 1859. The first work I
performed for him was mowing oats. I then trashed [or threshed]
for him awhile.
"I then went to for Mrs. Eldridge thashing (or threshing) barley and
so forth, until Edward Gleneater [Glenester], the bricklayer, sent
for me and told me that he wanted just such a man as I was. I says, "Alright
if the pay will suit." Says he, "I will give you as much money for your
work as you can get anywhere else and I will let you make overtime."
"And so in the summer of 1859 I went to work for him. He had taken a
contract to build a large tank for Giles Austin, but the weather being
so wet and water having to be packed out so many times, which was extra
work for him, not thought of by either side. And so it was turned into
days work.
"We then had to build a flint wall for the Honorable Granvill Dudly
Ryder, which took us most of the summer, four of us working at it. We then
had two miles to walk to our work. I was earning about 11 shillings a week.
[The very forces that had paved the way for the Church's growth in England
now opened the door to its decline. The bulk of the converts had come from
the working class, attracted to the gospel at least partly by the vision
of a better life in `The Valley,' and these people now responded by the
thousand to the invitation to `gather to Zion.' . . . As converts came
in one door, a similar number of emigrants went out another. In the years
1861 to 1870, there were 14,977 converts and 10,094 who emigrated.]
The Spirit of Gathering Begins
"I was still living at home with mother, and Edward would come
home once in a while to see her and talk to her about this religion, which
was Mormonism. She often thought it strange and could not understand it.
Edward talked about the first principles of the gospel to her which she
believed in part. When it came to the gathering she could not see why the
Lord would not accept of us as well in England as in America. We, of course,
told her that He could if He wished to but He had given the commandment
through Joseph Smith for His saints to gather to Zion, that He might teach
us of His ways and that we might walk in His paths. For out of Zion shall
go forth the law and the word of the Lord of Jerusalem, to fulfill the
prophecy of the Old Testament.
"Edward told her that he was going to start to America with Henry Groom.
This seemed to grieve her very much but I explained the necessity of gathering
the best I could. He started off in the spring of 1860.
Edward Durrant, age 20, sailed aboard the siling ship Underwriter in
the company of Henry Groom. (See LDS Emigrant Roster and Voyage History
Crossing the Plains -- 1840-1869. In 1862 he emigrated to Utah with Elizabeth
Philpot.] Again from John's record we read . . .
"He was short of money and I loaned him what money I had put
by in the Emigration Fund and he paid his way to New York. . . . He landed
there with Henry Groom and hired out to A. C. Henery, Queens County, Long
Island.
[Franklin D. Richards, former president of the British mission, had
declared that the Perpetual Emigrating Fund would operate `so long as there
shall be a poor Saint upon the face of the earth unable to gather to Zion,'
and called upon all those who wished for Zion to be firmly established
- `yes, all who wish for deliverance from the plagues of Babylon and eternal
life in the Kingdom and glory of God' - to donate. (Truth Will Prevail,
p. 176f)] |
