To the Pioneers and Citizens, and to the Officers and Members of the Sabbath Schools: My Dear Friends: Forty-one years ago this day I passed through Emigra- tion Cañon with President' Brigham Young. He was taken sick on East Cañon Creek, and I made a bed for him in my carriage. When we came upon the bench I turned the side of the vehicle to the west so that he could obtain a fair view of the valley. President Young arose from his bed and took a survey of the country be- fore him for several minutes. He then said to me, "Drive on down in[t]o the valley, this is our abiding place. I have seen it before in vision. In this valley will be built the City of the Saints and the Temple of our God." I drove down to the encampent al- ready formed by a portion of our company, who had cut a road through the quakingasp groves of timber which were in the bed of the cañon and come in ahead of us. We arrived in the encampment at half-past eleven of the morning of the 24th of July, 1847. The brethren had already turned out City Creek and irri- gated the dry and barren soil, being the first irrigation ever performed by any one in these mountains in this age. They had also commenced to plough some ground, and that noble pioneer, William Carter, whose circumstances prevent his meeting with the pioneers today, broke the first ground and laid the first furrow. The plowshare that performed the work is on the stand to- day. On my arrival in camp, before I ate my dinner, I planted two bushels of potatoes in the ground broken up. President Young commenced to re- cover from his sickness the hour he entered the valley. On a day or two following our arrival, a remarkable in- cident occurred. While President Young was walking with several of the Apostles on the higher ground northwest of our en- campment, he suddenly stepped out, stuck his cane into the barren ground and sagebrush, and exclaimed, "Right here will stand the Temple of our God." We had a peg driven down and it was nearly in the middle of the Temple as it stands today, which Tem- ple was built without any regard to the spot designated by President Young at the time. On the 26th, we went to the top of a high point on the north of the city, which Presi- dent Young named "Ensign Peak." We also visited the Hot and Warm Springs. On the 27th we drove to the West Mountains and visited the Salt Lake, President Young being the first to dip his hand into the briny water. We walked dryshod to the Black Rock and took a bath in the Lake. Afterwards preparations were made for laying out the city, and I with other brethren as- sisted President Young in laying out the ground and streets with chain and compass. We laid out a block of ten acres upon which to build a Temple, and city lots of one acre and a quarter, and streets eight rods wide, all of which has been published by his- torians. President Young left Winter Quar- ters on the seventh day of April, ac- companied by seven other Apostles and other men, all told 143 men and 3 women. The Apostles were Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, W. Wood- ruff, George A. Smith, Willard Rich- ards, Orson Pratt, Amasa Lyman and Ezra T. Benson. Parley [P.] Pratt and John Taylor arrived soon after, lead- ing companies of families. Orson Hyde remained at Kanesville. We trav- eled the first 500 miles without any grass. With the exception of a little grain we fed our animals, they lived entirely on the bark of cottonwood limbs and saplings, which they gnawed from the trees we would lay before them for their night's meal. This company of 143 men traveled 1030 miles, making their roads and building their bridges. In one instance we had to form a guard of a wedge shape for three days and nights to keep our company from being trampled to death by an enormous herd of buffalo that had gathered from the mountains and were migrating in a solid body to the plains below. The herd was judged to be sixty miles in length, and numbered not less than one million. They were traveling east and we were traveling west. We were three days passing though the herd, and we all breathed freer when we were clear of them. No other class of men will ever witness the same scene again upon the face of the earth. Brother Wm. C. A. Smoot, sen., got his horses loose and mixed with the herd, and it was with great difficulty that we obtained them again. Notwithstanding our first care was to secure an abiding place, a home for the people, we did not lose sight of other important matters. President Young contemplated at that early day the building of a railroad across the continent, and we marked out the route which we thought the national road would take to unite the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Brothers Orson Pratt and Erastus Snow entered the valley two or three days before the body of the pioneers; but where are those men today, and where is President Brigham Young and the Apostles who accompanied him? All are in the spirit world mingling with the martyred Prophets where they can plead for their brethren. Not one of them living today except my- self, and but few of the pioneers re- main. We have buried a whole quo- rum of Twelve Apostles since we en- tered these valleys of the mountains. The remnant of Zion's Camp, Mormon Battalion and the Pioneers number but very few today. Those of us who re- main will soon pass away, but our posterity live and are numbered in the Primaries, the Sabbath schools and the Mutual Improvement Associa- tions, and are this day assembled in this great Tabernacle to celebrate the arrival of the Pioneers into this great American Deseret, which today through the blessing of God and the labor of the Pioneers is blossoming as the rose. This company of pioneers spent about a month in this valley during which period we erected what is known as the Old Fort, surrounding three sides of the ten-acre block, with an adobie wall about ten feet high on the outside, and the east side with log cabins. We also arranged for this fort to have four entrances, one on each point of the compass. Most of the Pioneers returned to Winter Quarters where they arrived in the fall, making a jorney of over two thousand miles, besides the labors performed while here in building a fort, laying out the city and exploring the adjacent valleys. I wish to say a few words to the members of the Sabbath Schools and to all who are assembled in this Tab- ernancle today to celebrate the arrival of the Pioneers into this valley. It is not wisdom for me to occupy your time with a long address upon an occasion of this kind, but I have referred to a few incidents of our peculiar journey into this barren desert, that you may keep in mind the toil, the care and the harships which your fathers endured in laying the foundation of the Zion of our God which is to be established in the mountains of Israel, in fulfillment of the blessing of the old Patri- arch Jacob pronounced upon his pos- terity that should be fulfilled in the valleys of the everlasting hills in the latter-days. And upon the heads of the rising generation of the Latter- day Saints rests the responsiblity of building up the Kingdom of God upon the foundations which their fathers have laid. And also of building up a State in which shall dwell virtue, tem- perance, industry, frugality and hon- esty; a State which will do honor to the American government, where wholesome laws shall be administed in equity and justice to all of its citi zens according to the letter and spirit of the Constitution given by inspira- tion of Almighty God to our fore- fathers. I feel to say to our children, Honor your father and your mother and your God, that your days may be long and prosperous in these valleys ol [of] the mountains which the Lord your God hath given unto you. That God may bless you all, and en- able you to fulfill the object of your creation here on the earth to the satis- faction of yourselves and your Crea- tor, is the earnest desire of your friend and brother, WILFORD WOODRUFF.