Making Progress

Dear West Family and Friends:

Deposits to the Chauncey W. West Monument Fund this past week: 5/14 - $100, 5/19 - $25. I don't know who sent these in but THANK YOU VERY MUCH. Those who made these donations, and those who send in donations in the future please email me and let me know the date and amount. I would greatly appreciate it.

PLEASE, PLEASE, let everyone you know who is a descendant about this blog and if you receive my email please forward it on to others. Thanks very much.

This week I begin the first segment from A Biographical Sketch of Chauncey Walker West, by his son John Alva West, published in 1911.

Chauncey Walker West, presiding Bishop of Weber County from 1855 to 1870, was the son of Alva West and Sally Benedict and was born Feb. 6, 1827, in Erie County, Pennsylvania. His parents removed in his childhood to the State of New York, where, in his sixteenth year, he obeyed the gospel, and soon after started out as a traveling Elder. In the fall of 1844 he gathered with his parents to Nauvoo, Ill., where, early in 8145, he was ordained a member of the 12th Quorum of Seventy--quite a distinguished position in those days for a young man only seventeen years of age.
When the Saints were expelled from Nauvoo in 1846, he assisted in starting the first company for the west. In June, 1846, he left with his and his father's family, to seek a home in the Rocky Mountains. He partook of the hardships incident to that memorable journey, losing many of his kindred on the way, among the number his father and mother and brother Joseph, who died at Winter Quarters. With no available resources but his indomitable will and untiring activity he succeeded in bringing his father's large family to Great Salt Lake Valley, where they arrived in the fall of 1847. He was one of the first settlers of Salt Lake Ctiy and also of Provo, Utah County, from which latter place, in the month of December, 1849, he started with a company of men under the direction of Apostle Parley P. Pratt to explore the sourthern part of Utah. The company was gone two months and suffered many hardships, but returned in safety. It was upon this return trip, and when the company was threatened with starvation, and came near perishing in the snow, that Brother Pratt selected Chauncey W. West and Nathan Tanner from among the members of his party to go to the settlements for relief; they made a most remarkable night and day journey to Provo.

Continued next week - be sure to login.