The author was born in the State of Vermont, November 9th, 1818; first believed the fulness of the Gospel in the spring of 1832; first saw the Prophet Joseph Smith in December, 1835, in Kirtland, Ohio, which was then head quarters of the Church, was ordained one of the Seventies the following spring, and has been engaged in the ministry ever since; was with the Saints through their persecutions in Missouri and Illinois; was in prison with the Prophets, Joseph and Hyrum, in Missouri; carried the chain for surveying the first town lots of Nauvoo; was one of the two Latter-day Saints who first entered Salt Lake Valley; has crossed the back-bone of the American continent four times, and travelled, probably, not less than eighty thousand miles on that continent, but never, until this mission, left his native shore, or was absent from his family more than one year at a time.
