There would be 3 stages to the journey, the first of these being the sea crossing. The name of the ship they were booked to sail on was 'The Horizon', which was a 3 masted, square sterned vessel with a figurehead.
They sailed from Liverpool on the 25th May 1856 and had a good crossing only having one storm on the way over. They were on board for about 5 weeks and landed at Boston at the end of June. After all the checks had been completed they were ready for the next stage. The train would take them on a journey of 1500 miles to Iowa and it was more of a cattle train, which had no seating or much room to move about. They used luggage and trunks to sit and sleep on. They encountered a lot of hostility from the locals at the towns along the way.
At Cleveland they were forced to stay over night because of bad weather and they were allocated a large barn but the towns’ people kept up howling and shouting and throwing stones so they could not rest. Eventually one of the town dignitaries persuaded them to stop.
After arriving in Iowa again they met a hold up as their hand carts were not ready and these took several weeks to finish making it late in the season to travel over the Rocky Mountains. However, they were determined to complete the journey.

Before reaching the final destination they first had to cover 1300 miles, walking all the way and either pushing or pulling the carts, which were piled up with all their provisions, clothing bedding and tents. Everyone took part in this including the young children.
They faced many perils along the way, changes in the weather, strong winds, insects and illness. They were also attacked several times by Native Americans (Indians) and yet others were very kind to them and helped them in many different ways.
Gradually the weather worsened and the food started to run out meaning they were managing on a quarter of the original rations.

After crossing rivers there was no way to stop and dry their clothing and they were forced to carry on wearing them. It was when they reached Martins Cove, Wyoming that they encountered the worst of the weather, with heavy snow and reached a depth of several feet, and temperatures dropped to below freezing. They were not able to make any further progress and as they had thrown or burned most of the items they had no blankets for warmth or shelter.
Many deaths occurred at this time, either through freezing or starvation and during one night there were 15 who lost their lives.
They were seen by some Missionaries, who had better means of transport, and they rode to Salt Lake City to inform Brigham Young, who arranged a rescue party for them. The first sighting of these was at the end of October and even though they were all so weak still managed to raise a cheer.
They could only be given small amounts of food at first and then slowly increase this. Due to the continuing bad weather it took several days before the last part of the journey could be started. They all rode on Mule trains for the rest of the way, and eventually reached Salt Lake City at the end of November, 6 months after starting out from England.

During this time there had been a loss of a quarter of the group that set out. We know that Sarah survived and lived for several more years but we believe that John never completed the journey and probably died on the Plains.