---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 15
number: 4
published: 1912-02
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations, "Elders of Jamestown, North Dakota," *Improvement Era* 15, no. 4 (February 1912): 358.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1504unse
  transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers.
  identifier: improvementera1504unse
start_page: 358
end_page: 358
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1912-02)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1504unse
  publication_year: 1912
  note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1912, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# Elders of Jamestown, North Dakota

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358 IMPROVEMENT ERA enough, at the start, to secure it under him. His hair stood up in the wind, or rather fell back over his head. His face was leprous with terror. His eyes, now shut tight, now staring like a spectre's, almost flew out of their sockets. To move was certain death.
To sit still, it might be, was death also. But he held on.
 At the first stopping he scrambled off like one possessed, and searched for another place. There was just time for him to get on the front platform of the blind baggage, immediately behind the engine, in the midst of a crowd of ill-smelling Indians in red blankets. Some trainmen, passing, held up a lantern and wondered at his scared countenance. Then the black demon plunged again into the night.
 But here was a fresh peril. He could stand the smell of his neighbors. The fear of them did not smite his heart. But great floods of sparks from the smoke stack rained upon him —
 into his face and on his hair and clothes, each one of them burning hot as from the flames of Tartarus. This pitiless hail of red cinders he stood for hours. He had constantly to shift his position, much to the annoyance of the bucks and the amusement of the squaws,
till in the long run he was driven to seek shelter under one of the women's blankets.
 (To be Continued)

 President John L. Herrick, of the Western States mission, writes from Denver, Colorado, December 7: "It may be of rather unusual interest to those who read the missionary news to know that upon a recent visit of the writer at Jamestown, North Dakota,
 where no one has yet been converted, the Church building that was hired the occasion, to for hold conference in, was filled to overflowing, and the principal newspaper of the town printed a column article about the meeting and the work of the Latter-day Saints in that section. The group of elders laboring at Jamestown is given: Left to right, E. C. Cook, Dingle, Idaho; Conference President A. A. Rose, Midway; W .R. Hoover, Provo, Utah; front, J. S. Esplin,
Orderville, Utah,