1900-02-06-New York Tribune-Anchoria Here After Stormy Voyage

New York Tribune, 6 February 1900, p. 5.

Anchoria Here After Stormy Voyage

Thirty-Five Mormon Converts Among Her Passengers

The Anchor Line steamer Anchoria, from Glasgow January 18, came into port on Sunday night and reached her pier yesterday after a stormy voyage. She encountered a succession of westerly gales and head seas from the time she left Glasgow, and was forced to reduce her speed almost one-half. Her passengers, of whom there were sixty-seven in the cabin and seventy-six in the steerage, had an uncomfortable time of it, as they had to spend most of the voyage below decks. On Thursday the liner of the eccentric shaft broke, but it was repaired after six hours' work.

Thirty-five Mormon converts, many of them women and all of them filled with religious enthusiasm, arrived on the Anchoria. The party was in charge of Elders H. E. Bowman and Gottfried Eschlen, and is on its way to Utah. The converts are evidently from the middle walks of life, and according to the elders are from Holland, Belgium and Switzerland, most of them coming from the latter country.

Elder Bowman, who seemed to be the leader, said that he and Elder Eschlen had been doing missionary work abroad for two years, and that they had met great success.

"We do not teach," said Elder Eschlen, "the doctrine of polygamy, as that is a dead letter. It has not been taught in the Church of the Latter Day Saints since 189l. I know it is said that polygamy is still practised in Utah. There may be some old men out there who have had more than one wife for years. What are they to do? They can't kill them off. Our missionary work abroad has bees successful and we may go back again."

As the immigrants fulfilled all the conditional of the Immigration law and were not practising polygamy, they were allowed to proceed West.