A look back at local, national and world events through Deseret News archives.
On Feb. 4, 1846, a year and a half after the deaths of Joseph Smith and Hyrum Smith, the first families left Nauvoo, Illinois, and crossed the frozen Mississippi River as members of the Church of Jesus Christ began their trek west. Brigham Young and other leaders departed the city on Feb. 15, camping at Sugar Creek, Iowa.
The departure of most members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had begun. Their eventual destination was the Great Basin and the Rocky Mountains.
Meanwhile, the passenger ship Brooklyn began its own voyage, leaving New York harbor on Feb. 4, 1846, the same day that the first wagons rolled down Parley Street in Nauvoo heading west.
The Brooklyn sailed around Cape Horn, the southern tip of South America. Now in the Pacific Ocean, the ship sailed to the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) and continued on to the San Francisco Bay.
Under the leadership of Samuel Brannan, the party landed in the Yerba Buena harbor on July 31. The group organized a community, started the first newspaper and the first English-speaking school in San Francisco, and began farming.
Some of them crossed the Bay for better farm weather and founded the town of Brooklyn, which later became part of Oakland. Most eventually traveled east to the Salt Lake Valley.
Another trek
A group of Latter-day Saints began a trek to the Rocky Mountains that was both farther and earlier than the famous Latter-day Saint pioneer wagon train of 1846-47.
This group, known as the Mississippi Saints and often forgotten by history, formed a community within the church that made many contributions to the settlement of the West.
Southerners who had joined the church were aware of the Nauvoo exodus. A group of about 60 men, women and children from northeast Mississippi organized for a similar journey to the Rocky Mountains that summer. The Mississippi Saints were to come north and join the trek. The wagons embarked for the West on April 8, 1846. At first, the wagon train traveled north, angling west near St. Louis, Missouri. Due to many factors, the wagon train quietly joined an Oregon-bound company, and veered toward the Oregon Trail.
This pivotal moment is remembered within the church itself, but it also changed the course of westward expansion in the nation and the Great Basin. Here are selected stories from Deseret News and Church News archives about the treks and voyages, many of which began on this day in 1846:
“Brooklyn’s landing commemorated on wharf”
“Bitter cold is stark reminder of 1846 hardship”
“Day-by-day account of Saints’ trek”

“Members walk 1846 Trail of Hope”
“Exodus from Nauvoo — a symbol of commitment”
“Sugar Creek tested Saints in February 1846 during Nauvoo exodus”
“Historical time line of Nauvoo Temple”
“Nauvoo after the Mormons left”
“Mississippi Saints headed west in 1846″
