| 186 In the Herald for September 1, 1877, President Joseph Smith commenced the publication of a description of his trip to Iowa and Missouri. This will be interesting as showing the condition of the church and the country at the time:
We started from the office in company with Bro. A. McCallum, for a visit into the "regions round about," if we could find that disputed land, and discover whether the occupation were practicable.
We arrived at Davis City, a village in Decatur County, Iowa, of a few hundred inhabitants, situated on the south bank of Grand River, nine miles southwest from Leon, the county-seat; being favored by finding Brn. O. B. Thomas and B. V. Springer, at Leon, who kindly carried us over. The road from Leon to Davis City is very rough, the surface of the land being broken into numberless hills, valleys, and ravines, by Grand River, and its tributaries, the creeks, and the drains which carry off from the uplands the snows of winter and the rains of summer. . . .
At Davis City we stayed from the Saturday afternoon till Sunday evening, privileged to hear Bro. James W. Gillen in the forenoon, and permitted to speak to the people in the afternoon. There is quite a fair branch of the church at this point, and plenty of room for more people. There is an excellent flouring mill, a hotel, stores, workshops, and good schoolhouse, plenty of water and wood to make a desirable village location to those who may choose such.
After the services, we left Davis City with Bro. Fowler, formerly of Amboy, Illinois, and started for Lamoni. A passing storm-cloud gave us a drenching on the way, driving us to shelter with Bro. Fowler, his being the first house on the prairie within reach. . . . In the morning, however, the skies were clear, and we went on, reaching the "colony," as the neighbors term it, in the early day of the 16th.
The country where the Order of Enoch has located the scene of their operations has been frequently described, but we found a changed land to that we visited and rode over some six years ago. Then, a wilderness of arable land, untouched by the plow, and dotted only here or there by a farm or a grove, greeted the eye; now, a cheerful scene of busy farm-life, a wide spread of growing corn and wheat and rye and oats and waving grass, was seen everywhere, broken now and then by an interval of untilled land, showing the places yet open to the settler, where the cattle roamed freely the occupants, literally, of all "thousand hills." It is rightly called a rolling country; very fair to look upon, and giving to the careful and industrious husbandman a just reward for his labor. . . .
We found the Saints by no means discouraged or cast down. Their faith, grand and glorious, was as a well-spring of power to them; and they were grappling with difficulty as strong men to wrestle, calm, watchful, wary, and ready. . . .
Bro. M. A. Meder, of California, whom we had come to meet, had not yet
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