The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was organized on April 6, 1830, and missionaries first arrived in northeastern Mississippi in 1839. At Mormon Springs, many converts were baptized in a baptismal font made by damming the stream with stones just east of the ford. The Buttahatchie branch of the church was organized here in 1843 with William Crosby as branch president, and a small church was built on the west side of the ford to serve more than 200 members. From this site, on April 8, 1846, the first Saints left for their trek west under the direction of John Brown. They became the first to establish a religious colony in the West since the Spanish priests of 1769. Several members of this group, known as the Mississippi Mormons, were also among the advance scout party that first entered the Salt Lake valley in Utah on July 22, 1847. By the time Brigham Young entered the valley on July 24, 1847, they had already planted potatoes, beans, buckwheat, and a turnip patch. Many of these early converts were regarded as frontiersmen, colonizers, and traders, and nearly all were eventually called to lead Mormon colonies to Colorado, Utah, California, Oregon, and other areas of the West.