Robert Gardner Jr. joined the Church in January 1845 in Canada and, along with his family, traveled to the Salt Lake Valley with the company of Saints led by Elders John Taylor and Parley P. Pratt. They arrived Oct. 1, 1847.

Brother Gardner soon went to work building a saw mill at Warm Springs, two miles north of Salt Lake City - but it proved a failure.He then built a saw mill in Mill Creek Canyon. In 1856, however, the water running to the mill dried up. Brother Gardner was counseled to finish a canal that was partly constructed to run water from Big Cottonwood Canyon to his mill and irrigate his farm. The canal proved a failure and he lost all his crops and could not run his mill. That winter he was "flat broke," but continued to prepare for a mission to Canada the following spring.

Soon he went up in the mountains on foot to slide some dry timber for fire wood. The snow was very deep and the place for sliding wood was very narrow.

"I was climbing about a quarter of the way up the slide and I was met by a log which was running like an arrow and it struck my right leg below the knee peeling off all the flesh clear to the bone about four by six inches. . . .," he later wrote in his journal.

"When I looked down and saw the blood and the wound the first thought present to me was, Will this prevent me from going on a mission?' I took hold of my leg with both hands and raised it and found it was not broke, and said:All right I will go on my mission.' "

Brother Gardner yelled to two men in the canyon and they came to his relief, helping him home.

He spent the next winter months recovering from the accident. He left on April 22 to serve a mission in Canada. "I had so far recovered that I could walk without my crutches with care," he wrote. He was very feeble, however. He overheard, as he was leaving, someone say, " `There is one man that will not go far until he gives out.' I was looking as pale as a corpse, but that did not discourage me for I thought I knew what I could do."

Brother Gardner served a successful mission, and returned to the valley in 1858 in good health. He had 80 acres of land, owned a mill with his brother, and was out of debt. "This was the happiest time of my life, all was peace and good feelings," he wrote. (Souce: History of Robert Gardner Jr., 1884)