Page:Biography and Family Record of Lorenzo Snow monochrome.djvu/116

 90    BIOGRAPHY AND sanctified through the power and blessing of God, I was delivered from suffering and restored to health. The sickness was the result of extreme hardships and exposures consequent on the journey.

Elder William Huntington was called to preside over the settlement in Pisgah, which position he filled until, as many others in that location, he was removed by death, and his mortal remains consigned to the silent grave. After his death, Elder Charles G. Rich was appointed to fill the vacancy. In the following Spring, 1847, Elder Rich left for the Bluffs, to join the main body of emigrants, and I succeeded him as president of Pisgah.

By this time the Saints in Pisgah were in a very destitute condition, not only for food and clothing, but also for teams and wagons to proceed on their journey. Several families were entirely out of provision, and dependent on the charity of their neighbors, who, in most cases, were illy prepared to exercise that virtue. But, above all this, a sweeping sickness had visited the settlement, when there were not sufficient well ones to nurse the sick; and death followed in the wake, and fathers, mothers, children, brothers, sisters and dearest friends fell victims to the destroyer, and were buried with little ceremony, and some destitute of proper burial clothes. Thus were sorrow and mourning added to destitution. (Here the journal closes for the present.)

What a dilemma! And who better calculated to cope with it than Lorenzo Snow? With an indomitable energy— a mind fruitful in expedients, and a firmness of purpose that never yielded to discouragement, he proved himself equal to an emergency which would have terrified men of ordinary abilities.

In the first place he moved to arouse and combine the energies of the people—organized the brethren in companies, making selections of suitable men, some to proceed to the Gentile setlements to obtain work for provisions and