Chapter XXXII.
The Prophet's Mission—Labors in Massachusetts—The Organization of the Kirtland Safety Society.
Departure of the Prophet from Kirtland.
On Monday afternoon, July 25th, in company with Sidney Rigdon, Brother Hyrum Smith, and Oliver Cowdery, I left Kirtland, and at seven o'clock the same evening, we took passage on board the steamer Charles Townsend, S. Fox, master, at Fairport, and the next evening, about ten o'clock we arrived at Buffalo, New York, and took lodgings at the "Farmer's Hotel." Here we met with Elders Orson Hyde and Moses C. Nickerson, the former on his way to Canada, and the latter from that province.
To avoid the crowding, fisting, fighting, racing and rioting of the packets, we took passages on a line boat for Utica, where we arrived about eight o'clock a.m. of the 29th, just in time to take the railroad car for Schenectady, the first passenger car on the new road.[[1]] We were more than six hours traveling eighty miles. The locomotive had hardly stopped before the cry was, "Albany baggage: the cars start in five minutes." Amid a scene of confusion, bustle, and crowding, we succeeded, after a good share of scuffling and pulling, in getting our trunks on board the luggage car for Albany where we arrived the same evening.
A Steamboat Race.
On the 30th, at seven o'clock a. m., we went on board the Steamer John Mason, which took us to the Erie, lying over the bar. While the passengers were stepping off the John Mason, the steamer Rochester passed us: "Now for a race," was the cry from different parts, and a race trial of speed it was; however, as fate or steam power of engine would have it, the Erie, after touching at Catskill and West Point, where the Rochester did not, went into New York a few minutes "ahead." By such undue pressure of steam the lives of thousands have been sacrificed, and I thanked God that myself and friends were safely landed.
The Great Fire in New York City.
While in New York I visited the burnt district—the part of the city where it was estimated fifteen millions of property was consumed by fire on the 16th of December, 1835,[[2]] according to the prediction of the ancient Prophets, that there should be "fire and vapor of smoke" in the last days.