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Show CHAPTER VII THE SOUTHERN EXPLORING COMPANY By general conference, i t bad been hoped the desert refuge would have been found. Brigham Young was getting anxious. He had not heard from Lyman on the Colorado, and i t looked as i f Bean would be delayed. Three hundred families had left the city in the l a s t week alone1 and the exodus was growing daily. Many of the f i r s t to leave were arriving in the southern settlements". John R. Young, who witnessed these refugees at Parowan, recalled: At Parowan, two hundred miles south of Salt Lake City, we encountered a scene that I shall never forget. I remember d i s t i n c t l y , the "Exodus," as i t wa6 called, from Nauvoo, when sixteen thousand souls l e f t their homes and commenced that marvelous journey of fourteen hundred miles t o the unknown valley of the Salt Lake. But that exodus was like a small rivulet by the side of a mighty river when compared with the seventy-five thousand [perhaps 25,000] men, women, and children that we now met in one continuous line of travel. Horses, oxen, and cows were harnesses or yoked t o wagons and c a r t s ; . .. Mothers and children walked along as merrily as if going to a corn husking; each family moving i t s l i t t l e bunch of cows and flock of sheep, and a ll starting on the journey (that was never completed) to Sonora, in Mexico, or some other place.2 Although many had reached southern Utah, i t waB now determined that Utah County would be the rallying point at present. Before the exodus was complete, Utah County would be bursting a t the seams. Every c i t y from Lehi to Payson H37 |