In 1856 he was selected with others to travel with his ox team and wagon to the Missouri River to take supplies to the hungry and freezing people. When he returned, Nancy Ann had had her sister care for their first-born baby boy, Henry Sylvester, while she dug nearly one hundred bushels of potatoes by shovel and carried them in a water bucket to a dug-out pit for storage. In 1863 he was chosen a second time to return to the Missouri River, to assist more of the stranded Saints. On the 4th day of May that year, he was one of the four hundred eighty men who left Utah with 384 wagons, 3,607 oxen, 235,969 pounds of flour, and some cotton which they expected to sell. When they arrived with these supplies, the Saints were under strict food rations, receiving only one helping of bread smaller than the size of a grown person's hand for each of the three meals. When he returned to Utah with a family in his wagon, he did not take the route through Ogden Canyon, which would take him to his own home which he was anxious to see, but he continued on the trail to Salt Lake, where preparations had been made to receive his riders. He said the lady who served him breakfast the next morning made the best cornbread he had ever tasted. Later, he was sent to Green River, Wyoming, to bring Saints from there. He arrived home in time to plant his crops; however, before he could harvest them, he was called to Echo Canyon (1858) to help fortify it against Johnston's Army. He became ill. The captain, seeing his condition, said, "Perry, you don't look well. If you will take off your coat and shoes and leave them here with your gun for the man who takes your place, you may go home." He left the three articles there and walked home over the snow and ice. On his first trip to the Missouri River his feet had been badly frozen, which left a condition that bothered him the rest of his life. With this added suffering, it became difficult for him to walk when he grew older. In the following spring (1859) he was sent to Ogden as a guard. His family was taken to Payson for safety. When he was released as guard, he walked to Payson, Utah, for his family, and they returned together to their home in Slaterville, He gathered lead from the mountains east of Salt Lake City and made bullets. It was with delight that his youngest daughter, Margaret Ellen, watched him pull down the little door of the kitchen range just in front of the grates, place the raw metal into a container like a large spoon, with a long handle sharp at the end and see the hot coals melt the metal. A wooden stick was then forced onto the sharp end of the container's handle so the moulten lead could be brought safely away from the heat and poured into molds. He became an expert coffin maker, and when people brought their lumber and white fabric to him, he did the work free of charge. When his oldest daughter, Mary Jane, became old enough, she assisted him by pleating and folding the fabric, which gave the 230