men boys, and Ephraim Green and Ira Willis, brother
of Sidney Willis, urged the prospectors to return,
that together they might examine the place which
had shown indications of gold. It was with difficulty
that they prevailed upon them to do so. Willis and
Hudson, however, finally consented; and the so lately
slighted spot presently became famous as the rich
Mormon Diggings, the island, Mormon Island, taking
its name from these battalion boys who had first
found gold there.
It is told elsewhere how the Mormons came to California, some in the ship Brooklyn^ and some as a battalion by way of Santa F^, and how they went hence to the Great Salt Lake, part of them, however, remaining permanently or for a time nearer the sea- board. I will only notice here, amidst the scenes now every day becoming more and more absorbing, bringing to the front the strongest passions in man s nature, how at the call of what they deemed duty these devotees of their religion unhesitatingly laid down their wealth-winning implements, turned their back on what all the world was just then making ready with hot haste and mustered strength to grasp at and struggle for, and marched through new toils and dangers to meet their exiled brethren in the desert.
It will be remembered that some of the emigrants by the Brooklyn had remained at San Francisco, some at New Helvetia, while others had settled on the Stanislaus River and elsewhere. A large detachment of the late Mormon battalion, disbanded at Los An- geles, was on its way to Great Salt Lake, when, arriv- ing at Sutter's Fort, the men stopped to work a while, no less to add a little to their slender store of clothing and provisions than to await a better season for the perilous journey across the mountains. It was while thus employed that gold had been discovered. And now, refreshed and better fitted, as spring approached their minds once more turned toward the original pur-
