"In the spring of 1841 we moved to Nauvoo, Illinois. I was elected Captain of the Third Company, Fifth Regiment of the Nauvoo Legion. I passed through the trials and privations with the saints there and assisted in building the temple. On October 18, 1844 I was ordained a seventy by Daniel J. Mills. We completed the temple for ordinance work and on January 7, 1846 we received our endowments in the House of the Lord."
Neither William nor any of our ancestors who left written records describe how horrific the conditions they suffered under actually were. Probably because so many years had passed by the time that they sat down and recorded their experiences and events. There are many great resources out there to explore that describe the conditions of the day and how the pioneers suffered at the hands of the mobs. When William says they left Nauvoo in February he does not tell how they were forced to leave in the dead of winter and had to cross the miraculously frozen Mississippi river, many of them without the necessary clothing or shoes necessary at that time of the year. You will recall Emma Smith's description of having Joseph's translation of the Bible tied around her waist under her skirt while she carried her babies across that frozen and freezing cold terrain, with her other children clinging to her skirts. Many people recorded having bruised and bloodied feet by the time they reached the other side of the river. None of our pioneer ancestors who left written records really share just how bad the conditions were nor do they complain much. They were true heroes who suffered and sacrificed so very much so that they could have the gospel in their lives and be able to worship freely. That blessing is now our own because of their sacrifices.
William goes on to say, "I left Nauvoo on February 10, 1846 with the pioneers, but came back the last of March, fixed up the best my wife and I could and started on May twenty-third for Council Bluffs, Iowa. I stopped in Iowa and worked. We arrived in Winter Quarters on September 16, 1846. We passed throught that sickness that took so many lives and left Winter Quarters in May 1848 for the west. After four months we arrived in the Salt Lake Valley on September 22, 1848. We wintered in what was called the Old Fort in the Sixth Ward. The country was new and there was not a house on the city plot except the Fort. It commenced to snow the fifth of December. We had a long hard winter. The ground was covered with snow until April.
In the spring of 1849 the militia was organized and I was elected Captain of the Fifth Company of the First Regiment. In 1853 I was elected Colonel of the Second Regiment. I was also ordained a President of the Ninth Quorum of Seventies. In May 1855 I was called to go on a mission to the Indians on the Salmon River. My nephew, Baldy Watts, and J.Kress went with me. We were there more than a year.
After we came home I put up my saw mill in Parley's Canyon. We made lumber for the shingles and sawed timber to help build the old Fort and some of the first homes in the city. We were alloted ten acres of land. (The Denver and Rio Grande Depot is now on this spot.) My father, William Sr., and brothers, Harrison, Horace, and Melanchton worked with me."
In one history, it is recorded that Melanchton Burgess's wife was the very first white woman to live in Park City. The Pulsipher men also had saw mills up Parley's Canyon alongside the Burgess mills. They were always working and living together.
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